


Lazarus' Daughter

by HarleyQuinned



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Gen, Love Is for Children, No Romance, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, follows movie story line with flashbacks to OC origin, lots of sass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-27 00:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 26,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarleyQuinned/pseuds/HarleyQuinned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexandria is many things, a thief, a spy and the result of a father's experiment to try and protect his daughter. When the avengers are called upon will her skill set be what's needed to help or will she just put everyone at risk</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alexandria the great

In Alexandria's life she'd been called many things: talented, supple ...impossible. In all honesty, these have all had their merits in her professions, both the legal and not so legal of them, but are most suited to her current one. It wasn't exactly what you would call a normal job interview but, I suppose it's a fairly abnormal job.

 

 

**GANG OF THEIVES STRIKES AGAIN**

It was a cold day, 2 years ago, as Alex walked through the busy London streets, the wind desperately trying in a futile attempt to pry strands of her chestnut hair from the strong hold of her barrette. She glanced at the days headlines. "Great" she thought "all I need is this sloppy gang of rookies making everyone more alert and possessive." It had been going on for months now, the higher the tension rose the harder it made her job. Alex had been trying to sit it out but, her dwindling supply of cash meant that soon she was going to have to steal something.

It was four hours since Alex began searching for opportunities but, as she had suspected, everyone was being more protective and possessive. No one was leaving their houses unattended and any people who dared to venture out gripped there purses and wallets at all times. Things were getting desperate for Alex and, though a more contented version of herself would have questioned a grand town-house leaving their large French doors, that led out to its easily-accessible balcony, open at a time like this, she could not afford to pass the opportunity up. Alex grabbed on to a trellis beneath the balcony a climbed to the top. Swinging herself on to the balcony, she sneaked into the enveloping darkness of the room. As her eyes became accustomed to the dark, their attention was immediately drawn to a silver jewellery box. Alex rushed to open it and reveal what treasures it contained and then she noticed him. Startled Alex turned to face the figure. The man leaned over and turned on a small white lamp, Illuminating the room and creating dramatic shadows across Alexandria's face. For a moment they stared at each other, he wore a long leather coat, an eye-patch across his left eye and when he spoke, it was with a strong American accent.

"Alexandria Lazarus" he said "you've caught our attention."

"It wasn't intended" she replied, and a smile flashed upon his face for a moment.

"We've heard some stories about your...'talents' shall we say." he nodded "Very interesting, very unique and exactly what we're are looking for in an agent."

"What are you? Evidently not MI5 with an accent like that, so what, CIA, FBI?" Alex questioned "Who are you, mister? Who's attention have I caught, exactly?"

"My name is Nick Fury, and you have caught S.H.I.E.L.D's attention."


	2. Interruptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexandria gets a call during work

_Alexandria never liked her father's lab. It always smelled so strongly of chemicals and the flickering of the fluorescent lights was excruciatingly annoying. She was sat on a tall metal stool while her father studied a blood slide beneath a microscope._

" _are you done yet?" she asked "I want to go home"_

" _I think I'm done for the day, Lexy" he replied._

_Alex hopped of her stool and headed towards the door,her father following behind her. Hanging up his lab coat he muttered to himself "just a few more days and it'll be done. No one will be able to hurt you"_

* * *

"Do you know who I am?" Alex asked the 3 time escapee prisoner sat in front of her, the escapes always confused everyone-this guy was no Einstein, so he must have had outside help. The man nodded,

"And, do you know who I work for?" The man nodded once more,

"so, I assume you know what we do to people like you," Alex turned to the table beside her and unrolled a large pack of shiny stainless steel knives, "when they don't cooperate." They held each other's gaze for at least a minute before he broke the silence.

"I...I don't know what you're talking about."

Alex smirked, "I was hoping you'd say that."She turned back to her table and ran her fingers against the cold metal handles struggling to decide which to use. Her thoughts are cut off by the familiar feeling of her mobile vibrating in her trouser pocket. She turned to the man and smiled.

"This'll just take a sec'," she said nonchalantly. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, checked the ID and reluctantly decided to answered it.

"I am  _very_  busy, Coulson, this better be important," she said impatiently.

"Oh it is, agent Lazarus, there has been a code 7 all agents are being called in immediately."

Alexandria's ears pricked up at this news,

"wait, what, what happened was it to do with the Tess-"

"The tesseract? Yes, it's been taken we need all agents to report in," he repeated.

"Of course I just need to finish with Houdini here and-" she began.

"Now, Agent Lazarus" he interrupted her, hanging the phone up. Alex held the phone up to her ear a little longer, still processing what she had just heard. She looked at the young man still struggling against the rope strapping him in his chair, less Houdini after all.

"Looks like it's your lucky day," she said walking over to him with a sadistic smirk. He instantly relaxed however this inner peace was short lived as Alex drew her fist back and punched him in the jaw, toppling his chair over and knocking him out of consciousness.

"not too lucky though." she said as she packed her things and left.


	3. A Faceless Memory Of A Man

Alexandria looked out the small rounded window of the small S.H.I.E.L.D plane as it glided through the air over the never ending blue of the Atlantic. The vehicle slowed as it began it decent onto the large grey platform below. It was not nearly as impressive as the previous base but, that was gone now and ,if Fury really was starting the Avengers initiative, Alex would have to learn to adapt to things changing because, damn are they going to change fast. Coulson had sent her the file covering the avengers and what had happened the previous night. Late yesterday evening, the tesseract was giving off strange energy readings, unlike it had ever done before. Shortly after, an asguardian named Loki appeared and single handedly managed to take control over professor Selvig and agent Barton take the tesseract and then leave destroying the base as he did so. It may pain Alex to admit so, but damn that bastard had some impressive skills and Alex was definitely intrigued as to how she could gain these skills herself. The plane landed and Alex walked off it, on to the platform. It was bustling with agents all looking extremely busy and all with the same flicker of worry and doubt in their eyes, and that flicker had every right to be there. After what had happened, Alex wondered if this flicker was in her eyes as well. Alex scanned across the crowd of agents looking for a familiar face. Her olive-green eyes skimmed across faces until it came across one she recognised, and at the same time this face recognised hers. Agent Natasha Romanov and Alex began to walk towards each other. Alex and Natasha had worked together on many different missions and had gotten to know each other well. Natasha was an agent when Alex first joined and Alex had always looked at her as an example of how to be a good agent, coming from a similar situation as herself, Alex considered her to be like her in many different respects.

"Agent Lazarus, good to see you again" she said when she reached her

"Likewise," Alex replied "so, what's your take on these 'avengers' then?"

"Its either going to be brilliant or-"

"an absolute fucking disaster? Alex interrupted inquisitively

"thats one way of putting it," Natasha chuckled

"Anyway I thought you met some of them, what about Tony Stark?" Alex inquired. Natasha paused trying to think up her answer carefully however, Alex would never get hear it as at that moment, a large plane, carrying Coulson and a man named Steve Rogers AKA Captain America, landed opposite them. Alex had heard a lot about this man, Coulson was a bit of a Captain America fan boy and would talk about him whenever the opportunity rose. The pair of them were talking as they left they plane but Alex couldn't make out what they were saying.

"Captain, this is Agent Romanov,"Coulson introduced "and Agent Lazarus."

"Ma'am" Steve replied to each but his mind fixated on the younger, Agent Lazarus. The face was unfamiliar but he'd heard of the name Lazarus before. However, at the moment, he couldn't place where. So, what does this make the girl, a relative of some sort, he heard of this person back in the forties and she could only be what, 17? 18? Any how, too young to be a daughter, maybe a granddaughter, or great granddaughter even, to this strange man he couldn't give a face or description. A memory was there but, for the moment, only the name presented itself and that, will annoy Steve for hours.

"Hi" Natasha returned, Alex however, remained silent at the man how had be staring at her quizzically for the past few minutes and making her feel incredibly uncomfortable. Natasha turned to Coulson,

"They need you on the bridge; they're starting the face trace," she told him.

"See you there then," He replied before turning and departing, leaving the small group of, now, three

Natasha directed her attention towards Steve"It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice, Captain. Thought Coulson was going to swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?" The mention of his name pulled Steve out of his train of thought regarding the 'Lazarus' man,

"Trading cards?" he questioned as he turned to the red-haired woman however, it was Alex who answered

"I don't think words can quite do them justice," she giggled and Steve was thrown back into his previous train of thought at the sound of her soft, English accent.

 _"That accent, 'Lazarus', I know it all fits together, wasn't there an English scientist named Lazarus?"_ He questioned himself _"What did he work on?"_

Alex was about to explain in more detail but the group's attention was grabbed by the sight of Bruce Banner.

"Doctor Banner," Steve greeted.

Bruce gave a flicker of a smile. "Oh, yeah, hi. They told me you'd be coming," he told him. Alex studied the man she saw before her and compared him to the one she read about in her file, he seemed very calm, that was good, it would be increasingly worrying if he wasn't. However, he didn't seem like a man who could at any moment turn into a large green rage monster, he seemed, for all intents and purposes, perfectly normal.

Natasha turned to the men, "Gentlemen, you might want to step inside in a minute. It's going to get a little had to breathe," Alex looked at the confusion on there faces and smirked. The two agents then retreated indoors leaving the confused Captain and Doctor on the platform.

"Is this a submarine?" Steve asked.

Bruce appeared uneasy. "Really, they want me in a submerged pressurized metal container?" Large grey propellers emerged from the vessel and began to spin, slowly at first, preparing to lift the craft into the air. Banner seemed even more tense

"Oh no, this is much worse."


	4. Now, I'm Pandora

_It was a dark November evening and a cold wind was blowing in from the north. Like a frozen shadow, it reached every corner of the bustling metropolis Alexandria called home. In many of the large London town houses, that stood tall like soldiers defending their inhabitants from the harsh winds, large roaring fires burned, drawing in happy groups of people worshipping the bundles of ignited logs, in return for the enveloping warmth it provided. These families would joke about the winter cold and talk of festivities yet to come. They would eat warm comfort food fresh from the stove, they would chat and they would laugh. This was not the environment in Alexandria's home._

_Alexandria's Dad rushed into the house bursting the door open and they slamming it shut behind himself. His gloved hands fumbled at the locks and chains as Alex came through from the other room._

_"Dad?" she asked "Dad, what's wrong" He clicked the final lock shut and turned to Alexandria with a look of fear and panic in his eyes. He pulled off his long brown winter coat and reached into the pocket of his sharp pinstriped suit, producing a small hypodermic needle, filled with a strange indigo liquid_

_"We don't have much time, I finished the cure, take off your jacket, quickly" Alex did as she was told and removed her black school blazer and proceeded to roll up her sleeves. Her father threw a yellow matchbox onto her lap. She removed one and struck it along the matchbox's edge, watching it suddenly burst into a small orange flame, and held it beneath the needle's point. After a moment she drew the match up to her lips and blew it out, dropping its blackened corpse on the ground._

_"Sorry Lexy, we can't wait" he said as he pushed the red hot needle into her arm. Alex cried out, the pain was excruciating, her flesh singed at the contact of the scolding needle. Her muscles tensed at the pain, forcing the sharp tip to be pushed further through her bicep. Her father retracted the needle and a small dot of blood oozed from where it had been, and trickling over the burnt skin._

_Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door_

_"Lazarus!" a man screamed from outside "Lazarus, open up we know you're in there!" The banging on the door got louder and louder increasing into a deafening crescendo._

_"Lexy, you need to go," her father whispered "get out of the back way and keep running-" Alex listened to the panic in his tone, staring at him with a look terror_

_"But, dad I can't leave you here I-" she began_

_"Alexandria leave," they looked at each other for a moment before he finished, this time with even more urgency in his voice "NOW!"_

_Alex obeyed him and leaped up, running through to the back of the house. She stopped in the kitchen and yanked open the cupboard next to the large black stove. Pulling out a small brown leather satchel, she could hear the door crashing down in the other room._

_"Lazarus, you've got something that belongs to us," She over heard the man say his heavy cockney accent hung on the ends of the words like thick, black tar. Alex didn't wait to hear what it was they wanted, at this moment, she didn't care. She simply did what her father had told her to do. She flung open the back door, ran out into the small paved garden and kept running. She has come to regret that decision ever since. How could she have done it, how could she have abandoned him, she didn't deserve him as a father. She didn't deserve his name. She was not Alexandria Lazarus any more. She had a more fitting name now. A name for a girl who brings all around her pain. Now, she was Pandora_

* * *

If Alexandria thought that the agents looked busy and flustered out on the platform, here in the bridge, they were even more so. Each of them huddle in at the tightly packed stations, staring intently at the glowing monitor in front of them, all of them showing professionally and intelligent looking programs. Well, except this one guy but, Alexandria didn't focus on him too much, her attention was grabbed by Agent Hill's words

"All engines operating. SHIELD emergency protocol one nine three point six in effect." She turned to Fury. "We're at level sir."

"Good." He replied "let's vanish." He turned towards Steve, Bruce, Natasha and Alex

"Gentlemen," he addressed them and turned to Alex "kid."

Alexandria stared daggers at him, she may look no more than 16 years old but, as he well knew, she was much older than any of the people on this ship. He was only saying it to annoy her though and she wouldn't do him the courtesy of acting offended.

Steve pulled out some cash, in regards to his earlier bet that nothing could surprise him and began to wander around the deck. After a while, with nothing better to do while the face trace worked, Alex joined him

"Hi," she said, trotting over to him

"hi," he replied

"so," she said making awkward small talk "um, how are you"

Steve turned to her his interest in conversing peaking, maybe he could find out who she was and what happened to her family.

"I'm fine," he answered, before changing the subject " So, how long have you worked for S.H.I.E.L.D?"

"I don't know, about 2 years" she answered, glad that the conversation was gaining slightly more substance

"2 years? You must've been quite young when you started." he probed her

"Not as young as you'd think" she said, chuckling to herself.

Just as Steve was about to uncover the truth behind this enigma of a girl, their attention was drawn by an unfamiliar agent, and they all went to crowd around his screen.

"We got a hit. Sixty seven percent match. Wait- cross-match, seventy nine percent." The screen showed an image of a tall thin man with silky black hair combed back to a flick at the nape of his neck. " _wow"_  Alex thought " _skills and looks, shame he picked the wrong side or I could have seen us getting along. Well, C'est La Vie, good beats evil whether it's ugly or, in this case, about six feet of gorgeous"_

"Location?" Coulson asked.

"Stuttgart, Germany. Twenty eight, Königstraße," the agent said.

"He's not exactly hiding."

Fury turned to Alex and Steve " Captain, Pandora, you're up"

Steve took Alex's reaction to this news to mean that she was Pandora.  _"Curious_ ," he thought " _why would she chose to represent all that's wrong in the world._ " he turned to follow her out

_"This girl just gets more mysterious every minute"_


	5. I'm Not A Child

Hundreds of terrified people spilled out of the building onto the Stuttgart streets. The asguardian prince herded them into the centre, multiplying himself to chase them into the centre. He grinned and as he walked, his clothing morphed from a midguardian suit into his bold silver armour, a long emerald cape hung from his shoulders and grazed the floor, exaggerating the lines of every slight movement he made.

"KNEEL!" he shouted as he continued to pace arrogantly towards the group. Anger rose up in him when they did not obey , the red hot emotion spat the words at them once more for defiance:

"I said KNEEL!" His duplicates closed any gaps in the circle, leaving the crowd no option but to submit to his demand as they slowly crouched down in a ripple.

As they descended, his smirk grew wider.

"Is not this simpler?" He started gliding through the sea of terrified humans. "Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

His expression dropped slightly as an old German man began to stand above the rest of them. He stared Loki in the eyes, defiant, as he spoke.

"Not to men like you."

Loki's smile picked up again as he chuckled, closing in on the old man,

"there are no men like me," he retorted.

The old man looked straight at Loki, his voice not wavering at all and said,

"there are always men like you."

Loki turned slightly to address his new _subjects._

 **"** Look to your elder, people. Let him be an example." Loki raised his sceptre and pointed it at the man. A bright beam of energy shot from the end of it heading straight for the old man. Suddenly, Steve, in full Captain America uniform jumped in front, deflecting it with his shield. Behind him, Alex came in, a pair of guns hung on a belt that sat loosely around her hips, which were very defined in her black, skin-tight, SHIELD catsuit. She stood slightly back from Steve, not only because she didn't want to get in his way but also, because she wanted to see what he could do.

 **"** You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing." Steve said as he walked towards him. Alex smirked, as opening lines went, that was a pretty good one, and she should know, she was kinda the queen of sassy fight talk. Loki looked at the captain his smirk appeared on his face again.

 **"** The soldier; a man out of time." he commented. Steve looked him in the eye,

"I'm not the one out of time."

Alex rolled her eyes. He seemed promising with his earlier comment but,  _I_ _'m not the one out of time_ , seriously? Alex decided that she'd have to coach him on trash-talking.

As if to cut off the Captain's horrendous attempts, Natasha appear in the sky, flying one of shields air crafts. She pointed a large gun down at the asguardian.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down." she ordered him, giving him chance to surrender calmly. Loki rejected this offer. He threw a bolt of energy from his staff, aiming for agent Romanov's vessel. She swerved to miss it but, Loki didn't have time to try again, Steve went straight in to attack him, throwing his shield at Loki's face. Alex prepared herself ready to join the fight as soon as she was needed, he hands hovering above her guns. Steve threw punches and kicks however, Loki blocked them easily with his staff. They flung each other around like rag dolls and Alex could barely keep an eye on the pair. Steve was thrown away from Loki. He grabbed his shield and flung it toward him but, he deflected it. Steve was losing, Alex had to do something. Loki put the end of his sceptre on top of Steve's head

"Kneel," he growled. Alex ran to Loki, jumped and roundhouse kicked him square in the face,

"not today!" She shouted to him, hoping that Steve was taking mental notes on the sassy comment. The kick only slightly knocked Loki, not the result Alex expected. She quickly thought over her options: he was too tall for her to land a punch on his face and his torso was too well protected for a stomach hit; she could use the guns but, they needed him alive. Her only option, if a little predictable was to go for another kick.

She jumped, it was too predictable. Loki grabbed her by the leg, rendering her immobile. Her threw her back across the square. Her body slammed against the curb and went limp. He'd broken her neck.

Steve ran over to her and crouched down next to her body, she wasn't breathing. He checked for a pulse but he couldn't find one. Heat rose in his cheeks as he looked over at Loki, who still stood in the centre of the square smirking at what he'd done. He was _smirking,_  Steve thought _, he'd killed her and he was smirking_.

"You killed her," he shouted across at him "you son of a bitch you killed her!" Steve began to rise to go and beat the grin off of his face but, Alex grabbed his shoulder pulling herself upright. Steve jolted back, she was dead 30 seconds ago. Alexandria sucked in huge lung-fulls of air and clicked her neck back into place. she stood up,

"you killed me," she screamed at Loki "you son of a bitch you killed me!"

"Yes, you friend already covered that, child" Loki spat back at her, practically as shocked as the captain " now tell me: how did you do that, what are you?

"I'm not a child" Alex shouted back at him as she ran over and kicked him on the side of the head and rattling his helmet. They engaged in full on combat, throwing each other around, like Loki and Steve had before. Speaking of, Steve still sat on the ground staring at The Pandora girl in disbelief. The penny was finally dropping for him: Professor James Lazarus was an English scientist in the 1930's, he was working for British intelligence, trying to develop a a formula to regenerate dead tissue, and at times worked with . However, with all the money being spent on appeasement and trying to stop WWII, his funding was cut. Out of work, times got hard, he was low on money to continue his research so, he borrowed some from a local loan shark. He kept working on his formula and within time perfected it but, by that point the loan shark had already heard about what Lazarus was making, and he wanted it. Steve hadn't thought Lazarus had ever got to use any of it before he was murdered but, obviously one sample had been reserved for his daughter. For Alexandria. Which would make her, Steve thought to himself, about 90 years old-and immortal.

Steve pulled himself together and went to help Alex out, even if she was immortal, she was still getting her ass kicked

Back in the air, Natasha struggled to get a lock on Loki.

"Those guys are all over the place," she muttered to herself moving the gun around frantically. The screen in front of her glitched and 'PA system override was written in big words over the screen as ACDC echoed throughout the vessel.

"Agent Romanov," Tony Stark said as he flew onto the scene, "did you miss me?" Natasha smiled, she was happy for the help, although she would never increase Stark's ego by admitting it.

The Iron man landed beside Steve and Alex and pointed a large variety of weapons at Loki.

"Make your move, Reindeer Games" he said as Loki raised his hands and his armour began to disappear.

Tony put down his weapons, "Good move" he commented

Steve walked over to Tony, keeping his eyes locked on Loki. "Mr. Stark."

"Captain. Agent"

"Hi" Alex replied, her focus still on the guy that had just killed her, and to think she thought he was cute.


	6. The Calm Before The Storm

The unlikely quartet, Stark, Rogers, Lazarus and Romanov, were inside the large grey plane that was hurtling through the sky, back to base. The defeated Aesir sat-chained to prevent further attack- assuming no specific emotion,his body language revealed nothing about his thoughts or feelings. He was silent. He simply sat there, watching the group, like he was watching his favourite TV show. Alex found this more unnerving than when he was attacking them, what was he thinking, or planning. Was this the calm before the storm?

"I don't like it." Steve's statement was clear, precise and neatly summed up Alex's own concerns.

"What, rock of ages giving up so easily?" Tony questioned with his signature smirk.

"I don't remember it being that easy this guy packs a wallop," he nodded to Loki.

" _Packs a wallop"_ Alex repeated to him, exaggerating the syllables to show shock in what was possibly, the understatement of the century, "this guy threw me around like a rag doll and snapped my neck on the pavement like it was a stick!" Alex's neck tinged at the memory. Although it was perfectly fine now, regenerated back to it's healthy, flexible, and amended form, the memory of the agonising pain, shooting from her neck and radiating across her whole body, played tricks on her mind. Every time it happened her mind would trick her like this, the excruciating pain and then, nothing. It always seemed like forever, even if in reality it was just a few minutes. Waiting in a black abyss with no one's company but her own, never being able to find peace, before she was dragged back into life- just waiting there- immobile and emotionless.

"Well you seem to be fairly energetic for a corpse. Who the hell are you anyway,  _Pandora_?" Tony questioned, looking down at Alex judgementally.

"It's Agent Lazarus," she replied, somewhat annoyed "and we're getting off topic, the point is this guy is way too powerful to give up just like that."

"That's just the affect I have on bad guys, Lazarus" his smirk appeared again and Alex couldn't help but reflect it, she'd always enjoyed cockiness- modesty is such a boring trait.

"Of course," she chuckled, a hint of sarcasm in her words "but, this still doesn't feel right." Alex left Steve and Tony to continue their discussion and walked to Loki. Even sat down he still seemed tall and Alex didn't need to lower her head much to look him in the eye.

"Why did you give up?" Alex always found the direct approach to be the most beneficial. Loki smirked, if he divulged his information carefully, he could find out more about this midguardian. She intrigued him, it was hard to find many things that did that on this rock.

"A smart man knows when he has been bested" the god of mischief said, his words trickled from his lips in a pleasing manor, "besides, how could I ever hope to win in a fight against a woman who cannot die." Nobody had ever called Alex a woman before, at least not without the prefix 'young', when she was referred to it was with either her name, girl or kid-spending almost a century as an adolescent would result in that. She rolled the new word around in he head, she quite liked it. However, his sentence reminded her of what happened and she instinctively rose her hand up to neck. Loki smirked at her gesture, the idea that he had made a 'lasting impression' pleased him.

"Something wrong with your neck?" he asked.

"Don't screw with me, Loki, I'm not in the mood-" Alex was interrupted by a low omniscient growl from heavy black clouds.

"What was that?" Natasha asked, the first time Alex had heard her speak all trip

Loki recoiled at the sound, his eyes widening, he drew his body in.

"What's the matter?" Steve looked at the god "scared of a little lightning?" Steve chuckled.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows" Loki's gaze darted across the ship, scanning for any threats and preparing himself for the possibility of an attack.

Suddenly, a towering man crashed down into the jet. He must have been around 6'4" possibly more. He wore the same sort of clothes as Loki with the exception that his long, floor grazing cape was a bright, scarlet red as opposed to Loki's emerald green. Tony put on his helmet and prepared to fight the man, but he was thrown aside as easily as Loki had thrown aside Alex and Steve earlier. As quickly as the strange, Aryan man had entered, he had grabbed Loki and exited in the same direction.

Tony stood up, "And now there's that guy."

"Another Asguardian?" Natasha shouted from the cockpit.

"Think he's a friend" Steve added.

"Doesn't matter, if he frees Loki or kills him the tesseracts lost." Tony replied walking towards the exit.

"Stark, we need a plan of attack," Steve shouted to him, forever a soldier.

"I have a plan; attack." Tony said as he jetted out into the storm. Alexandria moved towards the parachutes, tossing one to Steve as she grabbed them.

"We need to go down there, Stark won't be able to take him on his own." she said, strapping herself into the chute.

"I'd sit this one out, Alex" Natasha warned her but, Alex ignored her continuing to fasten the buckles.

"I don't see how she can" Steve jumped in, clipping his own parachute on

"These guys come from legends, they're basically gods."Natasha tried to convince them some more.

"There's only one god ma'am," Steve began grabbing his shield as he ran to the back of the plane "and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that." With that, Steve jumped out.

"Alex, don't tell me you're going to go in there with them." the black widow asked

"Lighten up, Tasha." Alexandria joked as she made her way to the large open door at the end of the plane, the strong winds battering her dark brunette hair around her head.

"What are they gonna do? Kill me?"


	7. A Prince, A Liar, and An Agent

Alex tumbled down onto a soft green patch in a clearing in the forest. She unattached herself from her parachute and looked around, trying to find her bearings. An army of black storm clouds hung overhead; dark, ominous and pendulous, blocking any would-be moonlight from guiding her. Alex struggled to find anything that could identify her position, Steve was nowhere to be seen. Then, as if a large hand had drawn them back like a pair of curtains, the moon emerged from behind the dull clouds and threw its bright white light over the top of her. Chasing away the darkness, it illuminated every corner of her surroundings. Glinting in the light, Alex made out the sharp, jagged landscape of a mountain, and on it the sharp, clean-cut features of Loki. At first, she went to go stop him but after a moment, she realised he had no interest in moving and was in fact fixed on watching part of the forest. Alex went in search of what Loki was watching with such enjoyment and it didn't take her long to find them. From behind a few trees, Alex could see the pair, the tall blonde man, whom had taken Loki, and Tony, standing opposite each other, their 'ready for a fight' body language reeking of testosterone.  
"You have no idea what you're dealing with" the Asgardian said, his fist was clenched tightly around his large silver hammer.  
"Uh..." Tony looked around "Shakespeare in the park?"  
Alex chuckled, she checked to make sure the pair didn't hear her and they hadn't-they were too enthralled with trying to get the better of each other- Loki, however, did.  
The black-haired god looked down at the curious woman- she made little sense to him. _Why_  he asked himself _does she not intervene? She finds them amusing, they interest her but , surely a 'hero', an agent like herself should try to stop this petty quarrelling. Perhaps_ he concluded  _she is more the villain than she would care to admit_

"Doth Mother know," Tony continued, much to the entertainment of his unknown audience "you wear-eth her drapes?" He exaggeratedly moved his arms around in an 'Alas, poor Yorric' fashion, trying to poke even more fun at the other man. He didn't find it quite as funny as Alex.

"This is beyond you, metal-man" the Asgardian began, thoroughly unamused. "Loki will face Asgardian justice"

"He gives up the cube he's all yours, until then stay out of the way" Tony replied, lowering his mask. The mention of Loki reminded Alex that he was there. She turned her gaze up to the mountain to find that he was looking at her, standing there, his head bowed down and his eyes fixed onto her. His stare bore into Alex-

"What am I doing?" she thought. "I can't just let them argue, I should be stopping this." But Alex didn't want to move. Alex just stood there looking up at the prince as he looked down at her and they conversed in silence-they didn't need words-they already knew what the other was thinking of them. The only thing that brought them out of this visual discussion was the loud, deafening sound of a tree splintering in half and crescendoing down to crash on the floor as Iron Man was flung into it.  
The Asgardian walked towards Tony as he began to stand back up. Alex perked up, ready to intervene as the tall man smirked, spinning his hammer and pacing towards Tony. Alex was certain of Tony's impending doom she went to run in but, as she did, Tony put out his flat palm and bright pulse of energy hit the thunder god square in the chest, flinging him back. Alex wavered, unsure of what to do, so she just hanged back waiting to see what would transpire-Tony was not in any immediate danger after all.

The Aesir rose off of the ground, his pride was damaged and he was not prepared to take any more hits from some Midgardian in a suit. He raised his hammer up to the heavy black clouds and they rumbled in submission as a glowing spike of lightning struck down. He punched it forward, pointing it at Tony as the lightning was released. Iron Man struggled against it but it seemed too powerful-he was in trouble. Alex didn't have chance to consider it now , once more she went to run in yet, this time something else stopped her.

"Now, now," the god of mischief said, teleporting down from his seat on the mountain and restraining the agent "we don't want to ruin their little game, do we?" Alex struggled under his arms but, he was too strong and eventually she gave up trying to escape

"Good," Loki said once Alex had stopped struggling under his grip "so, who do you think will win?" Alex mumbled under Loki's hand however, when he didn't allow her to speak she assumed the question was rhetorical.

"I will, obviously, be the ultimate victor but, which of you will lose first? You and your measly group of pathetic Midgardians, trying so admirably to protect your world," Alex's eyes were locked on to the pair as they fought with each other throwing each other around and shooting off into the sky "or will it be, Thor, my so-called brother so intent on protecting this world as his own because of his love for your pathetic species and your-" Alex groaned under Loki's hand and he snapped out of his monologue.  
"What?" he snapped at her "do you have an answer for me, daughter of Lazarus?"he removed his hand from over her mouth

"I was just expressing my contempt at the possibility of the earth being conquered during a big Asgardian game of happy families." Alex said exasperatedly. She didn't bother to wait for his reply, looping her leg around the back of his, she pushed out from his grasp and twisted him down to the floor. She unholstered her gun and pointed it down between his eyes, that stared up at her, some what shocked at the small woman's hostility.

"Because, of all the things that could happen to the earth in its final days," she said her gaze unfaltering, "a Space-Viking Jeremy Kyle is not an adequate ending."  
After a moment, Alexandria returned her attention to Iron Man and the Asgardian Loki called Thor. They were staring each other off just as they had earlier, only now they were panting, a large round shield bounced between them.  
Steve had joined the party.

"Hey!" Steve shouted, catching his shield as it came back round "That's enough!"  
He jumped to the ground and went to reason with Loki's brother.

"Now I don't know what you plan on doing here-" he began.

"I've come here to put an end to Loki's schemes" Thor replied. Alex glanced at Loki, he was refusing to look at his brother, he instead seemed preoccupied staring in the opposite direction.

"Then prove it," Steve answered him "put that hammer down."

Tony cut in "Uh, yeah, no-bad call. He loves his ham-" Tony was cut off by the painful contact of Thor's hammer against his chest and was sent crashing backwards into a tree.

"You want me to put the hammer down!?" Thor shouted at the Captain as he jumped into the air raising the hammer over his head. As he went to bring it down on to Steve, he raised his shield into it's path. The two items collided, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, energy cracked from where the weapons met and a bright force was sent out from the pair like a ripple, flinging them all to the ground. Alex slowly began to stand up, as did the rest of them. After realising that the Pandora girl was not going to tackle him to the ground again, Loki also rose. Thor, Iron Man and the Captain all stood in the centre

"We done here?" The Captain asked the pair. Alex walked over to join the group dragging Loki behind her, his hands bound behind his back. She pushed him over to them.

"Yeah, We're done." she answered and Loki, almost a foot taller than her, looked down at her with the same look he had given her during their silent conversation. While Alex knew exactly what she thought of him and the best bet would say Loki knew what she thought of him too, Alex had no idea what he made of her. When he bored down into her with his icy blue eyes, Alex had no idea what crossed his mind. For a girl who'd always prided herself on being able to read people, this was the most puzzling thing she'd ever experienced-and the uncertainty terrified her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the now increasingly improve Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar is all thanks to my friend Jess, hyperkirbyplumbersword on tumblr


	8. Modern Day Dorian Grey

Alexandria, along with several other guards dressed head to toe in black body armour, led the captive Aesir down the long dark, metal corridors towards his cage. The sound of heavy boots clanging against steel rang out through craft-echoing back their reply from every corner. Apart from that, they walked in silence. As they escorted him past the lab, Loki slowed his pace, staring at Dr. Banner, whom was studying some equipment inside. A wide smirk grew on his face as he looked at the scientist.

"Keep moving. " Alexandria growled and Loki turned towards her. He hesitated for a moment, unused to getting commands. He didn't like being ordered around; he was a king, the rightful king of Asgard, and kings do not take orders from those beneath him. However, the whole of his plan was falling so neatly into place that he couldn't risk its detection by arguing with the orders of some pestilent Midgardian, so he obeyed. Loki looked Alexandria in the eye and smirked at her, just enough to confuse the Midgardian even further than he already had, before resuming his walk down the corridor. The echoing of footsteps returned.

When they reached the door to where Loki's cell was, Alexandria and a couple of other guards escorted him into it. Alexandria turned to look at Fury as he entered the room.

"Agent Lazarus," he said, making his way to a control panel, "Go find Stark and Coulson and tell them they're both needed on the bridge."  
She nodded in confirmation, turned and left to locate the pair. It didn't take too long to find them, deep in conversation about some cellist from Portland. When Alex entered they turned their attention to her.

"Agent Lazarus," Coulson said cheerily, "How's the neck?"

"Yeah," Tony interjected before Alex could answer. "What's with the whole Dorian Grey thing anyway...Alexandria is it?" he didn't leave time for an answer, "I mean I read your file, you've been clinically dead, what? 300 times?"

"472." Alex answered "473, if you include earlier today. The neck's good as new, Coulson; Fury wants you both on the bridge."

"Lead the way then, Alexan-" Tony began, following her out the door

"and it's just 'Alex'," she added, leading them towards the bridge.

"Iridium," they heard Doctor Banner's voice as they walked over to the large table where the rest of the Avengers sat "What do they need the Iridium for?"

"It's a stabilising agent," Tony answered, stopping to mumble something to Coulson as he moved over to the table. "It means the portal won't collapse on it self like it did at SHIELD." He walked over to Thor and patted him on the arm.

"No hard feelings, Point break, you got a mean swing." Thor looked disgustedly at where Tony had touched his arm and then threw him an equally disgusted gaze.

"Also," he continued, on a scientific roll, " it means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants." He stood at the top of the platform looking out over the agents, who were working busily like small insects.

"Uh, raise the ship's mast," he said gesturing half-mindedly. "Ship to top-sails."

The insects stared at him with a bemused expression.

"That man is playing Galaga," he pointed to his right, "Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." He studied the large, translucent computer screens at the front, placing one hand in front of his eye and rotating in a semi-circle.

"How does Fury even see these?" Tony questioned.

"He turns." Maria answered, sounding thoroughly unimpressed.

"Sounds exhausting."  
Alexandria stood behind the table, watching him with interest as he flicked from science to sassy comments and back again. She couldn't deny that she found him amusing, she always found his type amusing- cocky people always provided her with the most entertainment. Back when Alex had friends-long before SHIELD, when she was a humble cat burglar she always considered her best friend to be her most arrogant friend, someone whose ego can easily deflect her witty banter, and return it with a joke and a smirk. Those types of people, who could make her life happy again.

"The rest of the raw materials," Tony continued, drifting seamlessly back into science, "Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source, of high energy density." His hand brushed against the computer and he turned to face the rest of the group.

"Something to, uh" he clicked his fingers trying to find the right word "kick-start the cube"

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Maria asked with the same tone as before.

"Last night." He replied and Agent Hill glared at him with narrowed eyes. "The packet? Selvig's Notes? The extraction theory papers? Am I the only one who did the reading?"

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" The captain interjected.  
Dr. Banner paced back and forth, "He'd have to heat the cube to 120,000,000 kelvin, just to break through the cooling barrier."

"Unless," Alexandria stepped forward, "Selvig has figured out how to stabilise the quantum tunnel effect."  
Everyone turned and looked at Alexandria with a mixture of surprise and confusion.

"What?" she questioned innocently, "I'm 85 years old, I've taken a few classes along the way." Natasha shrugged and they all shared the same expression as before.

"Well," Bruce said, returning back to the original topic, "If he could do that, then he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally, people who speak English" Tony said, walking over to Bruce.

"Is that what just happened?" Steve said confusedly.

"It's good to meet ya'," Tony said, shaking his hand, "Your work on anti-electronic collisions is unparalleled, and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Bruce mulled his compliment over before saying an insincere "Thanks."

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube," Fury said as he walked onto the bridge, "I was hoping you might join him."

"I'd start with that stick of his," Steve said, somewhat glad that the conversation had turned into something he could understand, "It may be magical but it works an awful lot like a hydra weapon."

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube" Fury said "And I'd like to know how it turned two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor questioned "I do not understand."

"I DO!" Steve exclaimed and Tony, Bruce and Alex all rolled their eyes behind him, "I understood that reference."  
For a moment everyone just stood there in awkward silence until Tony looked over at Bruce and said,

"Shall we play doctor?"

"This way, sir" and the pair of them left.

"Agent Lazarus," Fury said, walking towards Alex

"Sir?"

"Keep an eye on them," he said to her in a hushed voice "and be discrete."

Alex turned to leave down the corridor "I always am," she shouted back


	9. Oh, Crap

Alexandria moved like a cat; swiftly and silently. She had always been used to lurking in shadows. It had been a crucial skill when she was a thief and as an agent it had become equally as important. She continued, unnoticed, down the hall until she reached the lab. She could hear Banner's and Stark's voices through the wall but she couldn't decipher what they were saying. She needed to get inside. Alex looked around her, she couldn't simply walk inside; they'd notice her. In the middle of the wall, Alex noticed a dark grey vent.

"Oh crap," she thought, it would be a tight fit, a  _very_  tight fit. Once she was through the vent the duct would be larger, but the last thing she wanted to do was be stuck in a small, claustrophobic ventilation duct while listening in on Tony and Bruce. Alex had had first hand experience of Fury's lack of trust and had no desire to subject anyone else to it. However, Fury asking her to do this, instead of Natasha, must mean that he finally trusted her. After waiting two years to earn it, Alex couldn't lose it for something as simple as not following orders. She reached up and pried at the edge of the vent, slowly pulling it off, and then rested it against the wall. She pushed up with the palm of her hands and began to slither, head first, into the dark duct. She had to kick her way in however, as she suspected the duct itself was larger. Having said that, it was hardly a comfortable fit. Alex shuffled forwards until she was directly over the lab, staring down at the scientists through a grate in the duct. She could hear them clearly now.

"It's gonna take weeks to process." Banner said, analysing Loki's staff.

"If we bypass their main frame and direct route to the home-wear cluster, we can clock this at around 600 terraforms," Stark answered.

"Heh heh, all I packed was a toothbrush." Bruce said and Tony chuckled.

"You know," He said walking over to Bruce, "you should come by Stark Towers sometime, top 10 floors all R&D. You'd love it, it's candy land." Tony picked up a small metal object of the worktop and grinned at Bruce.

"Thanks, but um, last time I was in New York I kinda broke, er,  _Harlem._ " Bruce replied awkwardly.

"Well, I promise a stress free environment," Tony said, walking behind him, "no tension, no surprises."

"Ow" Bruce exclaimed as Tony jabbed him in the side with the metal stick, electrocuting him. Tony stared into Bruce's eyes trying to see if he'd caused any reaction.

"Well that was a dumb move" Alex thought.

"Hey!" Alex could hear Steve shouted as he entered the lab.

"Nothing?" Tony questioned.

"Are you nuts?" Steve asked Tony,

"jury's out" Tony answered and Bruce giggled.

"Yep" Alexandria thought "giggled was the only way to describe it, a grown-ass man with a doctorate in physics who occasionally turns into a 'huge green rage monster' with the power to destroy most of New York just  _giggled._ "

"You really have got a lid on it haven't you," Tony continued, "What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo Drums? Huge bag of weed?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve challenged.

"Funny things are," Tony answered.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny" Steve replied seriously, "No offence, doctor," he added for Banner.

"It's okay, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle, pointy things."

Tony tutted at him. "You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut."

"And  _you_ need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark."

"Huh" Tony said, "Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"Oh crap," Alexandria thought for the second time that day, she was really hoping they'd just get on with the task so that she didn't have anything to report to Fury-

"They were 100% com-plete-ly trustworthy, sir."

"Excellent work Agent Lazarus, you must have a pay rise immediately as well as a 3 week holiday in the Bahamas, where you don't have to kill anybody."- unfortunately that won't be the case.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" The Cap asked.

"He's a spy," Tony replied very matter-of-factly, "Captain, he's  _the_  spy, his secrets have secrets." He threw a blueberry into his mouth and started chewing.

"An' it's bugging him, too," he mumbled- gesturing to Banner. "Isn't it?"

"Uhh," Banner said shaking his head, "I just wanna finish my work here, and-"

"Doctor?" Steve asked impatiently. Banner paused before he answered, audibly exhaling.

"A warm light for all mankind, Loki's jab at Fury about the cube."

"I heard it," the impatience rising in Steve's previously polite voice.

"Well, I think that was meant for you." Bruce pointed at Tony, who rewarded him with a blueberry, "even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower it was still all over the news."

"The Stark Tower?" Steve questioned "That big ugly-" Tony looked at him sassily and Steve continued, slightly embarrassed, "um, building, in New York?"

"It's powered by an arc reactor self-sustaining energy source," Banner continued while tinkering with the staff, "That building will run itself for, what, a year?"

"It's just a prototype," Tony replied, "I'm kinda the only name in clean energy right now, it's what he's getting at."

"So?" Banner explained "why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"I should probably look into that once my description device breaks into all of SHIELD's secure files." Tony answered.

"That crafty son of a bitch," Alex thought, she needed to tell Fury about this, but she couldn't turn and go back the way she came and she couldn't drop out of the vent she was peering through until they left. She was stuck there.

"I'm sorry, what?" Steve asked.

"JARVIS has been running it since I hit the bridge, in a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide. Blueberry?"

"And yet you're confused as why they didn't want you around." Steve said sarcastically.

"An Intelligence organisation that  _fears_  intelligence? Historically- Not awesome."

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up," Steve answered confidently. Maybe some people are trustworthy, Alex thought to herself. "This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders - we should follow them."

"Following's not really my style." Tony said, eating another blueberry.

"And you're all about style aren't you."

"Of the people in this room who is A) wearing a spangly outfit? And B) not of use?"

"Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?" Banner asked.

"Fine, I don't think Fury is who we should be worrying about." Steve answered.

"Well then who should we be worried about, old man?" Tony asked, trying to get a reaction out of him.

"Alexandria."

Her ears pricked up at the mention of her name,

"Why would they worry about me over Fury, I just follow orders?" she questioned to herself.

"Really?" Tony asked, chuckling. "Alex? She's a little girl."

"She's an 86-year-old ex-cat burglar, with extensive fire-arm and hand to hand combat training who can't die." Banner corrected, "I read her file, but why should we be any more afraid of her than we should Natasha, or any other agent?"

"Because of what happened while you were fighting Thor," Steve motioned to Tony. "She was there before me, but she didn't rush in to help and the next thing I know she's marching Loki over to us."

"Loki already killed her once," Tony said, the penny dropping, "he could've easily over-powered her and turn her into a 'flying monkey' like Selvig and Barton so why didn't he?"

"What the hell?" Alex questioned to herself "This is ridiculous, this..." She didn't know how to finish that thought. The whole idea of Loki having a plan for her was completely overwhelming and downright sickening. The claustrophobia of the vent finally got to her, she had to get out of there. She scrambled, trying to turn around.

"What was that?" Tony asked walking over to the ventilation shaft, and grabbing the vent at the bottom of it.

"Oh crap." Alex was thinking that a lot today. She tried to move away from over the vent, but she wasn't fast enough. She flipped over as she crashed down onto the floor in front of Tony's feet, landing on her back with a painful thud. Steve and Bruce walked over to her and she looked up at the three of them.

"Claire Bennett?" Tony questioned, "What the hell are you doing here?"

* * *

Loki stood in his cell staring up at the camera; he smirked at it.

"I'd like to speak to the immortal woman now."


	10. To Barter With A Mad Man

Loki paced back and forth across the diameter of his cylindrical cell. His gaze was fixed in front of him whilst he waited for the Midgardians to complete his request. The immortal woman, she was playing straight into his hand and she didn't even know it; they all were. He could sit back in his albeit somewhat inhospitable cage and relax, watching his plan flourish, without so much as lifting a finger. Suddenly, he stopped pacing- Agent Lazarus had come to speak with him. A large smirk grew on his face.

"There's not many people who can sneak up on me," he said turning to face her, "Agent Laz-"

He stopped mid sentence and stared angrily at the agent who stood before him.

"Agent Lazarus?" Agent Romanov finished, "sorry to disappoint you, but she's not coming. You see, Loki, you are our prisoner, and I'm not sure how it works on Asgard but here, prisoners don't make requests, they don't get what they want. I can't believe Asgard is any different and therefore, I can only assume that you already knew you wouldn't get to speak with Agent Lazarus." She walked forwards and took a seat in the steel chair in front of his cell. "You're not an idiot, Loki. Every action you made since arriving on Earth has been part of a well thought out plan. You knew you wouldn't get to speak to Alex. I'll bet you were even fairly sure you'd end up speaking to me."

Loki walked to the front of his cell, slowly applauding her as he did.

"Well, you seem to have it all figured out, all of my plans summed up in one neat little paragraph, it's like you read my mind. Or perhaps you credit me with too much intelligence, agent, perhaps I have no plan and I am merely taking each task as it comes." He slammed his hand against the glass and stared her in the eye. "Then again, perhaps you don't credit me with enough intelligence. Enough intelligence to see that the only reason you are here is that you haven't any idea of what I'm planning. Yes, of course I knew you would come." He backed away resuming to pace around the cell as he spoke. "After whatever tortures Fury could concoct, you would appear as a friend, as a balm, and I would cooperate."

Natasha rose from her chair and this time she was the one applauding him. She walked closer to his cell and Loki stopped pacing to see what she had to say.

"Close, but Fury didn't send me," she lied. Loki walked over to her, looking confused.

"You come here of your own accord, I can't imagine it's for the polite conversation, you've come to barter with a me, to barter with a  _mad man_."

"I want to know what you've done to Agent Barton." she said, all humour lost from her voice.

"I would say I've expanded his mind," Loki chuckled. Natasha didn't see the funny side and her voice remained cold and monotone.

"And once you've won, once you're king of the mountain, what happens to his mind?"

"Ooh, is this love, Agent Romanov?" Loki chuckled; as much as he enjoyed messing with Alexandria's head, messing with Agent Romanov's was equally as satisfying.

"Love is for children," She answered without hesitation. "I owe him a debt." Loki stepped backwards and sat in a relaxed position on his bed at the back; he raised one arm, motioning for her to continue.

"Tell me." he instructed. Natasha sighed in exasperation, she didn't want to tell him any more than what was absolutely necessary in order to get the information she needed out of him, yet she continued as requested.

"Before I worked for SHIELD I, uh," she sat back down in her metal chair, "well, I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skill set, I didn't care who I used it for." Natasha explained.

"Or on," she added with a smirk, "I got on SHIELD's radar in a bad way." She paused trying to find the words.

"Agent Barton was sent to kill me, he made a different call." Loki stood and began once more to pace the diameter of his cell.

"That sounds very familiar, Agent Romanov. Our 'mutual friend' found her way into this organisation under similar circumstances, did she not?" Natasha leaned back in her chair, she didn't want this bastard to bend the conversation into what he wanted to discuss although yet again she found herself in compliance, she needed to keep him talking after all.

"Agent Lazarus is a victim of unfortunate circumstances. Her father was murdered when she was sixteen and she proceeded to spend the next 67 years on the run from the organisation that sanctioned it. She did what she had to do to get by, and who could blame her." Loki smirked at this response.

"She 'did what she had to do', not a phrase that could be applied to you and your 'unfortunate circumstances'," Natasha didn't retaliate, she showed no signs of this affecting her; her face remained hard and expressionless.

"Well," Loki said changing the subject back, "What would you do if I vowed to spare Agent Barton?"

"I wouldn't let you out-" she began.

"Oh no, but I like this," Loki grinned. "Your world in the balance and you bargain for one man."

"Regimes fall everyday, I tend not to weep over that, I'm Russian. Well, I was."

"And what are you now?" Loki questioned but Natasha rose; she was done with story time.

"It's really not that complicated," she began, wondering if they had in fact over estimated his intelligence, "I got red in my ledger, I'd like to wipe it out."  
"Can you?" Loki asked, "Can you wipe out that much red? Dracoff's daughter? Sao Paolo? The hospital fire?" Natasha looked horrified at the memories as the came flooding back to her, Loki stood and began walking towards her.

"Barton told me everything. Your ledger is dripping, it's gushing red and you think saving a man, no more virtuous than yourself, will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child, a prayer- pathetic! You lie and kill, in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors; a dear part of you, and, they will. Never. Go. Away." Loki slammed his fist against the cell with an echoing thud, making Natasha jump back.

"I won't touch Barton," he growled "Not until I make him kill you, slowly, intimately and in every way he knows you fear and then he'll wake just long enough to see his good work and when he screams, I'll split his skull." Natasha backed off and turned away from him, her head bowed.

"This is my bargain, you mewling quim."

"You're a monster," she sobbed. Loki chuckled his signature, ominous chuckle at the sight of her reduced to this

"Oh no, heh-heh, you brought the monster." he grinned. Natasha turned to face him completely unaffected by his words.

"So, Banner," she said calmly, "that's your play."

"What?" Loki asked, confusion evident in his voice; how had a mere Midgardian so completely beneath him managed to trick him like this? Natasha put her hand to her ear piece and made towards the door.

"Loki means to unleash the Hulk, keep Banner in the lab. I'm on my way." She said to an unknown agent, "send Thor as well." She turned to face Loki before she left.

"Thank-you for your cooperation."

* * *

"So," Tony said looking down at Alex, still in a heap on the floor, "You were just checking the vents over, huh?" Alex stood up quickly, brushing herself off.

"That's what it looks like," she answered defiantly.

"No," Banner jumped in, "It looks like Fury sent you up there to eavesdrop on our conversation."

"Do you honestly think you'd even be on this ship if we didn't trust you? If Fury didn't trust you? I had to check the vents over; anything could have been planted there."

"And you're the only one that could do that, no janitors or anything?" Tony questioned, unconvinced.

"Yeah Stark, we are a top secret government organisation who employs low level custodial workers and then invites them to poke around the vents for hidden recording devices and bombs and shit." Alexandria said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. She glared at him with her eyebrows raised.

"Besides, some of these vents go pretty high up, they need someone whose brains they wouldn't have to mop up off of the floor if we hit turbulence." Alexandria stared at Tony and Bruce; Steve had left to go check on something and Alex wasn't in the position to follow after him and see what it was. She didn't give anything away on her face but inside she was begging that they'd bought her story.

"So uh, Fury trusts us?" Banner questioned.

"Yes," Alex crossed her arms in front of her chest, "Not that you've given him any reason to."

"Oh, and you have?" Tony said, "Alexandria Lazarus- the ex-cat burglar and-"

"No," Alex interrupted, her voice raised "Alexandria Lazarus- the SHIELD agent of 2 years who's been on hundreds of successful missions and toppled numerous warlords and general bad guys alike." Tony stepped back at the force of her words and Alex's throat stung at the volume.

"But, you see that's the thing," Bruce said, quieter and calmer than the other two "You've given him so much reason to trust you, Alex, and he still doesn't. As you pointed out we've given him no reasons, so why would he trust us and not you?"

"He does trust me-" She began defensively.

"Really?" Tony said walking back over to the computer screen, "because, it looks to me like he sent you to, uh" he raised his hands making sarcastic speech marks in the air, "check the vents, to keep you away from Loki while Natasha questioned him." Alex rolled her eyes,

"Now you're just being absurd Stark."

"Oh yeah?" He got up a video of security footage from Loki's cell on the screen "because he did ask for you personally."

"What?" Alex rushed over to the screen, Loki's face grinning at her on a loop-

"I'd like to speak to the immortal woman now. I'd like to speak to the immortal woman now. I'd like to speak to the immortal woman now." The video kept saying over and over, it echoed through Alex's mind.

"Fury may have trust issues, Agent Lazarus," Tony said, raising his head to look up at her, "but you're not an easy person to place trust in at the moment."


	11. Only The Gods Live Forever

Fury stormed into the lab angrily. His eyes darted between Alex, Tony, and Bruce as he tried to decide whose incompetence to question first.  
"What are you doing Mr. Stark?" he said exasperatedly.  
"Better question," Alex jumped in, pivoting the screen around to show the surveillance video of Loki in his cell, "Why didn't you tell me that tall-dark-and-psycho here had asked specifically to talk to me. Even better question, why did you have me crawling through the vents while you sent Natasha-" Alex brought up another video of Natasha sat in a silver chair telling Loki all about her father and the years she spent on the run from Aeternum Incorporated, "to tell Loki my entire life story." Alex paused, seeing if Fury would answer; when he was silent she continued.  
"After all the time I've spent working for you, do you still not trust me?"  
"You're a spy and a thief, Agent Lazarus, you're trained to lie and cheat. So, no I don't trust you-I probably never will-but, you're just going to have to deal with that," Fury paused then added "Mr. Stark, you are supposed to be locating the Tesseract."  
"We are," Bruce added, "The model's locked and we're searching for the signature now. If we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."  
"Then you get your cube back, no muss, no fuss," said Tony. The video minimised on the computer screen to reveal a program busily scanning through files whilst a large globe spiralled and lit up as the gamma signature tracker slowly searched it. It was just under half finished when it beeped informatively.  
"What is phase 2?" Tony added as classified information bubbles popped open in front of him. There was a loud clattering noise as Steve dumped a large silver and black gun on the stainless steel table that made Alex jump. The other three were unfazed, barely glancing at its source.  
"Phase 2 is S.H.I.E.L.D uses the cube to make weapons," Steve announced, then added to Tony and Bruce, "Sorry the computer was moving a little slow for me." Fury moved over to Steve, calmly placing a hand on the weapon as he tried to explain the situation.  
"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract, this does not mean-"  
"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony said, spinning the screen to face him. It had blue prints and carefully annotated models of potential Tesseract weapons and missiles being fitted together."What were you lying?"  
"I was wrong director, the world hasn't changed a bit." Steve said.  
"Did you know about this, Alex?" Bruce asked.  
"Phase 2 was beyond my classification, I didn't ask questions-"  
"Because you didn't want to know the answers," Bruce interrupted, his voice raised slightly. As he said it Natasha and Thor walked in, a look of both confusion and worry on their faces.  
"Do you want to think about removing yourself from this environment?" Natasha asked cautiously, creeping towards Banner as she did. Bruce in turn backed away from her as he spoke,  
"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed." Natasha continued to walk towards him, whilst keeping her calm and cautious tone.  
"Loki's manipulating you-"  
"Oh and you've been doing what exactly?" The others began to shift from foot to foot and nervously fidget at the uncomfortableness of their calm confrontation.  
"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you-"  
"Yes," Bruce continued to back away, "and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy." His voice raised to it's previous not-quite-shouting volume, setting the entire room on edge,  
"I want to know why S.H.I.E.L.D were using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."  
"Because of him," Fury said with his arm outstretched; everyone's eyes followed along it to see who he was pointing at.  
"Me?" Thor asked confused and the rest of the room shared in his confusion.  
"Last year, the Earth had a visitor from another planet, who had a grudge match that nearly levelled a small town," Fury began to elucidate. "We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously out-gunned."  
"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor defended.  
"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" Fury replied, "and, you're not the only threat." He walked around the small gathering of people as he explained, "The world is filling up with people who can't be matched, that can't be controlled."  
"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve asked, unimpressed at Fury's attempt of validation.  
"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it as his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war." Thor stepped forward as he spoke, sharing in Steve's unimpressment.  
"A higher form?" Steve questioned; he knew war as it was and as it had been 70 years ago, he couldn't conceive any idea of there being any further advancement than the one he had witnessed himself.  
"You forced our hand, we had to come up with something." Fury advocated.  
"A nuclear deterrent," Tony began, "'cause that always calms everything right down."  
"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark." Fury pointed out. Steve walked over to them as he spoke, "I'm sure if he still made weapons Stark'd be neck deep-"  
"Wait, hold on," Tony interrupted "How is this now about me?"  
"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Steve sassed back.  
"Mum, Dad stop fighting," Alex interjected sarcastically from in between them.  
"Like you're an innocent party in all this, Lazarus," Steve said spitefully, while Tony asked the more pressing question.  
"Which of us is Mom?"  
"I thought humans were more evolved than this," Thor said derogatively.  
"Excuse me," Fury said, exaggerating the words, "Do we come to your planet and blow stuff up?" Everyone began to speak at once in a uninterpretable babble of angry shouts.  
"Do you understand what this means? You treat your champions with such mistrust. You're not my Champions. What is it about me that bothers you so much. Are you two really going to start this now. No one asked for you opinion, kid. I'm old enough to be your mother! But not mature enough. Are you boys really that naive? S.H.I.E.L.D monitors potential threats. Captain America's on a threat watch. We all are. That is not your concern, you're on that list. Are you above or below angry beast. Stark, leave the guy out of it. Are you a threat, I feel threatened. Why don't you show some respect. Respect? If I need to put you down then I will. Oh you're manhandling me now then that'll be a big surprise to you later." The group was so engrossed with their insults and arguments they didn't even noticed the staff glow and swirl a magnificent azure blue. The arguments died down and Thor shouted above the rest of them.  
"You speak of control and yet you court chaos."  
"That's his M.O isn't it," Banner said and they all flicked to look at him. "I mean what are we? A team? No, no, no we're a chemical mixture that creates chaos. We're- we're a time bomb."  
"You need to step away," Alex said, stepping towards him.  
"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony said placing a hand on Alex as she tried to step past him.  
"You know damn well why!" Steve shouted at him pushing Alex back so he could look Tony in the eye, "Back off."  
"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me." he chuckled in reply.  
"Yeah, big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?"  
"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." Natasha nodded and raised her eyebrows in agreement.  
"I've met guys with none of that worth ten of you," Steve continued in a serious tone. "I've seen the footage, the only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."  
"I think I would just cut the wire." Tony answered. Steve smiled slightly, as if Tony's last remark had just proved his point, and looked around.  
"Always a way out." he said, "You know, you may not be a threat, but you'd better stop pretending to be a hero."  
"A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers, everything special about you came out of a bottle."  
"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds." Steve provoked.  
"Heh hah hah huh," Thor chuckled. "You people are so petty, and tiny."  
"Yeah," Bruce said reiterating his earlier point, "this is a team."  
"Agent Romanov, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his roo-" Fury began.  
"Where?" Bruce interrupted "you rented my room."  
"The cell was just in case-"  
"In case you needed to kill me but, you can't, I know, I tried!" Banner looked around the room, if was a mix of shocked faces- least of all Tony's. He'd spent the entire time joking with Banner about the Hulk, just idle humour. The realisation of what Bruce really thought of the Hulk struck Tony hard, and the resultant feeling; a mix of both shock at the extent of Banner's fear and hatred of 'the other guy' and regret at having made those stupid jokes; was evident on his face.  
"I got low," Bruce continued "I didn't see an end so, I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spat it out. So, I moved on, I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until, you dragged me back into this freak show, and put everyone here at risk. You want to know my secret, Agent Romanov? You want to know how I stay calm?" The three agents reached for their guns in unison and held on to them, ready to fire.  
"Bruce," Steve said "Put down the sceptre." Bruce looked at his hands and realised that he had unknowingly taken Loki's staff off of the desk. The tip glowed a bright swirling blue as it had done before, only this time they all noticed it. They stood in stunned silence, staring at one another. The silence was broken by a ringing noise from the computer as it happily announced to everyone that it had found the Tesseract.  
"We got it." Tony confirmed the computer's meaning. Bruce clattered the staff down on the desk untidily and made his way towards the computer.  
"Sorry kids - you don't get to see my party trick after all," Bruce said as he walked over to the computer.  
"You've located the Tesseract?" Thor asked.  
"I could get there faster," said Tony.  
"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard," Thor shouted, "No human is a match for it." Tony began to leave but Steve grabbed his arm before he could go.  
"You're not going alone." Steve told him. Tony slapped his hand away.  
"You're gonna stop me?"  
"Put on the suit - let's find out."  
"I'm not afraid to hit an old man." Tony said, they looked each other in the eyes- each of them trying to intimidate the other.  
"Put on the suit."  
"Oh my god," Bruce said looking up from the screen. Suddenly, there was a loud fiery explosion that flung Natasha and Bruce out the windows, sending them crashing to the maintenance level below. The rest of them were flung to the ground in the lab.  
"Put on the suit," Steve said  
"Yep," Tony agreed hurriedly getting up as he and Steve ran out the door. Alex and Fury sat up abruptly and tried to get their bearings. Alex stood up shakily, grabbing at the wall for support. Fury raised his hand to his ear and called Agent Hill to assess the situation.  
"Hill?"  
"External detonation, number 3 engine is down." she answered and then shouted to someone off to her side. "Can we get a run in? Talk to me."  
"The turbine looks mostly intact but it's impossible to get out there to make repairs while we're in the air," an agent with a nasal voice answered her.  
"We lose one more engine we won't be." she sighed. "Did you copy that, sir? Someone's got to get outside and patch that engine up."  
"Stark, you copy that?" Fury asked into his earpiece.  
"I'm on it," Tony replied. He got to his feet and marched quickly towards the bridge.  
"Lazarus, with me." he shouted back. She pushed herself away from the wall she'd been leaning against and followed him out the room.  
"Coulson," Fury continued, "Initiate defensive lock down in the detention section, then get to the armoury."  
Fury and Alex rushed onto the bridge, pushing past an array of panicky agents and crew workers, rushing around busily in an attempt to fix the current fiasco and return the craft to the status quo.  
"Bring the carrier about to 180, heading south. Take us to the water." Fury shouted as he ran to the control panels.  
"The navigation went down when we got hit," an agent informed him. "We're flying blind."  
"Is the sun coming up?"  
"Yes sir." the same agent answered sheepishly.  
"Then put it on the left. Get us over water, one more turbine goes down and we drop." Fury turned to Alex and Hill.  
"We need full evac on the lower hanger bay." Alex nodded and began to walk with Hill to the door. A small metal cylinder skidded across the floor towards them. Maria was the first to identify it.  
"GRENADE!" Hill yelled and stepped in front of her, flinging her to the side as it detonated. Suddenly, hot, red flames lashed out from the small neat container whipping Alex's face, across her shoulder and straight down to her wrist. The heat tore through her sleeve like a knife through butter and scorched the flesh beneath it equally as easily, leaving a ugly red burn. The fire cleared as quickly as it appeared and Alex stared at her body as the ugly wound began to disappear, being replaced with smooth alabaster flesh. Alex wasn't the only one staring. While everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D knew about her ability, very few had seen it in effect, including Hill who stared gobsmacked at newly fixed flesh. Alex noticed her staring and grinned.  
"You should see me do stab wounds," she chuckled as she stood up, offering a hand to Agent Hill. Hill pushed Alex's offer away and got up on her own.  
"This isn't a joke, agent Lazarus." Maria said as she grabbed her gun and rushed off.  
"Well gee, Alex, thanks for saving my life and stopping me becoming a Sunday roast" Alex mumbled sarcastically. Enemy agents began to pile in; Hill and Fury had taken refuge behind some desks, popping up over the top to shoot. Alex looked over at them from the side.  
"Not my style," she thought as she unholstered her guns and started shooting the enemy agents as she walked over. One by one they all fell to the floor, wounded or dead, as she approached, not even getting a chance to touch the trigger before they were down. Except one. An enemy agent ran in, gun in hand and without a moments notice, shot her square in the chest. Alex staggered back slightly at the force. With a large grin, she watched the expression of shock set in on the enemy's face, as the round, bloodied wound began to close up, pushing the tiny metal bullet out and on to the floor with a delicate 'ting'.  
"W..what?" he stuttered, his mouth hanging open.  
"Spooky, right?" Alex answered as she whacked the butt of her gun against his head, knocking him unconscious.  
"Lazarus," Fury shouted from behind her as she continued to beat the crap out of the enemy agents as they piled in, "Fall back."  
"Yeah," she shouted back as her boot collided with the side of someone's head. She pulled out her hand guns from their holsters again firing into the doorway as she walked back, eventually finding herself next to Fury and Hill.  
"Lazarus, we've got this covered, I want you down at the detention level assisting Coul-" Fury began to speak, but he was cut off by one of Hawkeye's exploding arrows hitting the wall behind him with a deafening bang. They looked up to where it had been fired from to find agent Barton with his bow drawn. He fired a second arrow that hit by the monitors. This one didn't explode. It instead, hacked into the systems making them malfunction.  
"Engine 1 is now in shut down." an electronic voice announced, and the craft began to slowly tip forward.  
"Lazarus," Fury shouted over to Alex "Go!" Alex needed no further instruction, she ran out of the door and was bolting through the corridors, pushing past confused engineers and jumping over the general detritus that littered the floor. She made her way to Loki's cell and burst through the door. Her eyes went immediately to Coulson who was lying, slumped against the wall, and her body followed almost instantaneously after to go help him. She didn't notice that Loki's cell was missing and she didn't notice Loki standing above her. A jolt of blue energy flashed out of his sceptre and knocked Alex back. Loki motioned to one of his henchmen, standing behind him, who then went forward and placed two fingers against Alex's neck.  
"She's down," he informed.  
"Not for long, be quick about it," Loki instructed him. The henchman removed a large empty syringe from his jacket pocket and stuck it in her arm, filling it up with her blood.  
"All done," the henchman said, putting the vial in the pocket he'd removed the syringe from, he began to walk back over to Loki. Alex woke up. In less than a second, she had sat up, pulled her gun from her side and shot the henchman in the back of the head. He fell to the ground and landed on his back.  
"Back so soon?" Loki asked as Alex stood up and walked towards him.  
"Shut up." She was sick of his stupid mind games. He ignored her and continued anyway.  
"We never did get to have our conversation earlier; however, I found what Agent Romanov had to say about you extremely interesting. Nothing I didn't already know of course, I've had Barton gushing all S.H.I.E.L.D's secrets to me- including yours."  
"Shut up," she repeated. She was now standing opposite him and the control panel, in front of where his cell used to be.  
"Your life before S.H.I.E.L.D was particularly interesting. It is a shame you didn't learn anything in those years of running from Aeternum."  
"What?" Alex asked, lowering her gun slightly.  
"Well, the main message," he said walking towards her, "the only thing that Aeternum could have taught you and you've just ignored it. You've forgotten the one thing they were trying to show you." He was now only a few paces in front of her and Alex lowered the gun to by her thigh as she spoke.  
"What message?" she asked shakily, almost afraid to know the answer. Loki leaned in next to her and whispered in her ear.  
"Only the gods get to live forever." Alex froze. Paralysed with fear, she was unable to move as the dark memories that she'd pushed so far back in her mind came flooding back. Loki didn't wait for her to regain her senses, one quick push and she fell back, out of where Loki's cell had been, and was plummeting to the ground. Alex panicked, terrified as she fell, she placed her hand to her ear and tried to call Fury.  
"Fury," she shouted into the earpiece, "Coulson is injured - he's in the detention section."  
"Lazarus? What's all the noise?"  
"I'm, I'm falling" she said, panic evident in her voice.  
"You can survive it, can't you?" Fury said.  
"I-"  
"Lazarus, tell me you know can survive this."  
"I DON'T KNOW!" She screamed against the wind as it rushed past her head.  
The comms cut out. The ground was getting bigger and bigger as she neared it. Alex closed her eyes-she was just above the ground.  
Three.  
Two.  
One.


	12. Memories of a girl named Pandora- part 1

Alex had always taken an interest in death. At its face that seems incredibly creepy and morbid but when you consider that it's Alex it seems perfectly natural- dying is Alex's forte after all. People say many different things about what happens in the moments before death and a few get repeated a lot. There's a bright white light. You feel a sudden peacefulness. Your life flashes before your eyes. Alex had never seen any lights or felt any sense of peace. In the brief moments she had been dead before there had been nothing, just darkness and a terrifying silence. A twisted, sickening purgatory of nothingness before she was dragged forcefully back into life. The latter myth, although she never experienced it the previous 473 times, she could vouch for. As she fell, memories came flooding back to her; memories she had long since repressed. Memories of a frightened teenage girl running from her past. Memories of a girl named Pandora.

It was a few years after Alexandria Lazarus had gone and the immortal, morally-ambiguous Pandora had begun walking around in her place that she realised just how vast her problems were. When she ran from her home she didn't stop running, she kept heading north for days, hitching the few rides she could, until she found herself in a small suburb on the outskirts of Newcastle, hiding out in a house that had been abandoned during the war. The only problem now was that the war was over and the occupants weren't too happy with their new house guest. Thousands of children had been orphaned by the war and Pandora had no want to become hidden within the masses, so she ran again. Not as far this time- just into the heart of the city- and not without looting some of the house's valuables first. So that's where she found herself in the summer of 1946 and that's where she found trouble.

Pandora had been getting quite a talent for thievery at this point and was managing to live in moderate luxury. It was a warm mid-June evening and Pandora was walking home from the cinema- a new 'Sherlock Holmes' movie had come out and when it wasn't happening to her she loved mystery. She turned down an alleyway; a short-cut to her flat; when she heard footsteps behind her. She knew better than to look around, opting instead to remove a compact mirror from her coat pocket and nonchalantly 'check her make-up'. Her follower was a tall man, maybe 6 foot, with short, combed brown hair, slightly darker than her own and dressed in a long brown coat. Alex started to walk faster, making swift and sudden turns but, he was still following her. She broke into a run and so did he. She was fast and agile, making sudden 90 degree turns around corners. However he was even faster, even swifter, he managed to grab onto the back of her collar and she came crashing to the ground with a thud. The man pulled out a small blade that glinted in the moonlight and crouched down pressing it against her neck.

"You've been cheating death Pandora," he pushed down on the blade and small amounts of blood began to trickle from the wound before it healed again, "and only the gods get to live forever." The man pushed the blade down onto her throat even more, Pandora tried to kick under his grip but, she couldn't get free and she could fell herself growing weaker, as weak as the pathetic school girl she used to be. She started to close her eyes.

All of a sudden a shot rang out through the alley, echoing back as the noise bounced off of buildings. Pandora could feel the pressure being released from her neck and the cut healed up almost as soon as the blade had stopped being pressed down. She opened her eyes to find her would-be murderer slumped down beside her with two small gunshot wounds in his back, side by side, and immediately sat up. Two smartly-dressed men were stood in front of her, holstering their guns, and, although their height and build were the same, they were almost polar opposites of one another. The first man had dark hair and deep brown eyes that matched by his tanned Mediterranean complexion. The second was fair-haired with icy-blue eyes and an alabaster complexion to go with it. Both were tall and reasonably muscular.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"Well that's very lovely," the blonde man turned to his friend, he had a strong Scottish accent, "No 'Thank you for stopping me being decapitated by a crazy assassin',"

"Callum." The other man replied in a firm voice. He walked over to Pandora and offered her his hand, Pandora grabbed a hold and he pulled her up.

"I apologise for my friend's sarcasm," he began as Pandora brushed off her coat, "Allow me to introduce myself,my name is Atticus and this here is my friend Callum.

"Callum did a small, somewhat sarcastic, bow- mocking his friends propriety. Pandora looked at the pair confusedly.

"And who was he?" She pointed to the corpse on the floor.

"He was an assassin for Aeternum Incorporated, they hunt people," Atticus paused trying to find the words, "people like us." Pandora still looked confused.

"Like us?"

"Immortals. Oh come on lass," Callum said, "you didn't really think your dad was the only man whose ever tried to cheat death. You didn't really think he was the only one to succeed. As long as there's been people on this planet, there's been people trying to live forever and," he gestured to the corpse, "there's been people trying to stop them. Aeternum Incorporated are one of the oldest ones out there! They formed back when even Atticus was a lad-"

"Tantum deos vivat in aeternum," Atticus broke in, "Only the gods live forever. They are a group of religious fanatics, trying to capture us and find a way to kill us, all in the name of whatever deity they happen to be following at the time. First it was Jupiter, now it appears to vary between members."

"Now as much as I love story time," Callum said, grabbing onto Atticus' arm, "We really ought to be going- dead bodies attract unwanted attention."

"But, wait, you can't go what if- what if another one of them finds me?" Pandora asked. Callum chucked her gun over to her and she caught it clumsily with both hands.

"I suggest you learn how to use that." he said walking away.

"Callum." Atticus said and Callum stopped in his tracks. "Maybe we could bring her back to-"

"Alice doesn't like it when we bring home strays. Especially pretty, female strays."

"She won't last five minutes with Aeternum on her trail- she needs training." Callum looked over at Alex and then back to Atticus.

"Fine." Callum agreed reluctantly, "but you've got to take it for walks."

~*~

Coulson lay in the same spot as before; slumped against the wall, blood trickling from his lip, as Fury ran and knelt beside him.

"Sorry boss, the guy rabbited." Coulson said panting.

"Just stay awake," Fury grabbed hold of Coulson's face "Eyes on me."

"He took some of her blood," Coulson said still panting between each word. His speech was slowing.

"What?"

"He took her blood and he threw out the...the," He paused again "I'm clocking out here-"

"Not an option."

"It's okay boss, this was never gonna work...if they didn't have something to...to." his head slumped back against the wall and Fury got up to allow the medical team to get through. He leaned against the railings for support and drew his hand up to his ear piece,

"Agent Coulson is down."

"A medical team is on their way-" a disembodied voice answered but was interrupted.

"They're here. They called it."

* * *

 

Pandora had followed the two men back to a flat just outside of the city centre. It was seemingly large but that may have been an illusion caused by the general lack of furniture. She walked into the large, open room - it was almost perfectly rectangular. Three windows lay equally spaced along the long back wall and the two shorter sides, to her left and right each had two plain white doors leading into unknown rooms. The corner of the room she found herself had a small kitchenette in the back right corner and diagonally opposite it was an old patched-up leather sofa and a small makeshift bookshelf made of four cinder blocks and two planks of wood. It contained no more than 5 or 6 books.

"Alice?" Callum shouted into the flat. One of the doors to Pandora's left opened and a tall woman with a short bob of brown hair stepped out. She had wide-spaced chocolate-coloured eyes and rouged lips and she wore a long sleeved, knee-length purple dress and short brown heels. She looked to be in her very early twenties. She nodded at Pandora.

"What's with the call girl in the cheap coat?" she said carelessly. Pandora's jaw dropped as she glared wide eyed at the brunette and Atticus shared a similar reaction, whereas Callum burst into hysterics at the comment.

"A-Alice!" Atticus stuttered, "She's our guest, you can't-" he turned to face the other man, who was still laughing.

"Callum, will you desist?!" Callum's laughter graduated down to a small spluttering and then stopped all together.

"Come on, uncle, I'm only teasing; besides, I did make my opinion on strays quite clear." Alice replied.

"Uncle?" Pandora questioned.

"Well, great-great-great-great-great-blah blah etc-great uncle." Alice replied.

"So exactly how old are you?" Pandora asked, turning to face the two men.

"I was born in 92 AD in Rome." Atticus began "By the time I was 21, I had already joined army, placed in the ninth legion, and was taking part in a scout to what is now part of the Scottish highlands-"

"Which was where he met me." Callum said with a grin.

"There was a large battle between the legion and some of the natives and when it was over- they thought us both to be dead." Atticus continued.  
"But we weren't, we were still alive, only just which was when an old priestess came across us. We never got her name, we don't even know how she did it but when we woke up she was there, she said she had saved us and that we were immortal now."

"And you believed her?" Pandora asked

"Course we bloody didn't!" Callum laughed, "All I knew was I wanted to kill as many Roman bastards as I could so I just walked over to Atticus and stuck my blade in him. When the wound healed up instantaneously, I was taken to believe her." Pandora looked at Atticus.

"And you had a sister?"

"Brother." He answered, "I didn't realise he'd had a family until 14 years ago, when I found out I tracked Alice down. She's lived with us ever since." Alice walked over to the patchy sofa and slumped down in it lazily.

"So to reiterate my earlier question-" Alice said, reclining on the seat, "Who's she?"

"She's an immortal, like Atticus and me. I believe the assassin said Pandora?" Callum said, unsure.

"Oh great!" Alice exclaimed sarcastically, throwing her hands in the air, "You brought the root of all evil back to our flat. Do you want a cup of tea or would you rather release some more sin into the world?"

"A cup of tea sounds lovely, Alice," Pandora said taking off her coat. "And I can assure the woman I stole this from had only the most expensive taste in outerwear."

Callum chuckled, "If you two are gonna go on at each other like that, we're gonna have to start training you in combat right now, Pandora."


	13. Memories of a girl named Pandora- part 2

Tony and Steve were sat at the desk on the bridge. They were surrounded by empty chairs. Natasha was dealing with Clint; Bruce, Thor and Alex were all MIA, and then there was Coulson. Steve sat forward, silently, and Tony turned his chair away from them, not wanting to see what was happening in some futile, juvenile attempt to make it all go away-out of sight, out of mind. Fury stood at the head of the table, thumbing over a set of Captain America trading cards.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket." He said monotonously. "Guess he never did get you to sign them." Fury threw the cards onto the desk in front of Steve. The once pristine cards were now ruined. He picked one up and stared at it. A red splatter of blood- Phil's blood- covered the right hand side of Steve's smiling, saluting cartoon alter ego.

Fury sighed as he continued. "We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, location of the cube, Banner, Thor, Lazarus... Loki took her blood and we have no idea why. I've got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye." He shook his head and muttered to himself before pacing as his speech continued. "Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea- Stark knows this- called the Avengers Initiative. the idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people and see if they could become something more, see if they could work together when we needed them to and fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes." Stark stood up, pushed his chair away and walked out.

"Well," Fury sighed. "It's an old fashioned notion."

* * *

Decades of memories flashed before Alex quickly; training, talking, laughing, stealing, fighting, even becoming friends with Alice as strange as it may seem. Even the slow days of the trio's acceptance of her; when she began to feel increasingly less like Pandora and let them acknowledge her as Alex. Moving from place to place across Europe at a moment's notice; Paris, Moscow, Vienna, Naples, and back again. The end of the forties and the whole of the fifties fleeted past in a blur until the memory rose of a day she dreaded. The second worst day of her life, next to her father's death; 17th March 1961.

It was a lovely day of bright beautiful sunshine, Alex had remembered that much. It was as if the weather was mocking her, making light of her tragedy. The sky was a crisp, clear blue, it was so close to being warm despite the chill in the air that had lingered from winter. Alex had left the flat and gone walking- nowhere in particular, just wandering. It was early in the morning and she had left without waking the other three up and so she wandered aimlessly and for hours in serene solitude. She came across a bench in a local park and sat in the sunshine. A kind-looking old woman came and sat next to her, she had a bag of breadcrumbs that she threw randomly for passing birds.

"Lovely day." She said with a grin, liberally chucking a handful of crumbs at a group of pigeons.

"Yes, it is rather." Alex replied.

"I just love to come up here and feed the birds. I used to feed them with my granddaughter. You remind me of her you know," she reached into her breadcrumb-bag, "you look about her age," Alex felt a sharp scratch in the side of her arm and glanced down to see a syringe in her side,

"Looks can be deceiving." The old woman grinned again, only this time much more sinister as a tall, dark haired man snuck up behind Alex and held a blade to her throat, pressing it down just enough so that she couldn't move but didn't lose consciousness. The old woman pulled out the needle that was now filled with scarlet liquid and held it in front of her eyes.

"Don't worry about your friends coming and interrupting our little meeting, they've been held up at your little flat. It's strange how cooperative they'll be once you threaten that pretty girl of theirs, you know the normal one." The woman began while transferring the blood into a small vial.

"You see, we went there first looking for you and why not kill three immortals with one stone as it were," she chuckled at her own joke "Easier said than done which is where this comes in." She said indicating to the vial in her hands. "Unlike, Atticus and all the others we found and locked up in previous years, we know how you became immortal. We were the ones who funded your father's little project when the Government stopped. Once you have the immortality poison you have the means to craft an antidote. Only he realised what our plan was and used his only sample on you as he's intended from the start and when he refused to make any more, we had to kill him- it was very messy." Alex struggled under the tall man's grip, which made the knife cut deeper and pain radiated across her body.

"But this poison is in your system, it courses through your veins and from your blood we can extract it, fashion a cure and- as a thank-you- we'll let you and your friends have the first batch and you can watch them die - permanently." Alex knew that if the knife moved any deeper she'd pass out but if she didn't take a shot now, she might not get the chance again. She jerked her head backwards suddenly and head-butted the man behind her and he staggered backwards, dropping the blade in her lap and clutching at his nose that was now bleeding heavily from where Alex had broken it. The blade swiped across the side of her neck as he stumbled back sending a jolt of pain along the wound but, without the pressure of the knife it healed quickly. Alex grabbed the blood stained blade from where the would-be assassin had dropped it and swung it across-stabbing the old lady square in the chest. The old lady dropped the vial and it smashed on the pavement. Alex's blood trickled down hill into a nearby drain. Alex pulled the knife from the old lady and threw it to her side, hitting the dark haired man in the throat, who crashed to the ground on it's impact. An increasingly large red stain formed on the the old woman's shirt as she looked up at Alex, gasping for air.

"Tantum Deos Vivat in Aeternum." she said, pausing for air after each word.

"I was never any good at Latin." Alex replied and then she ran; down the street, two lefts and a right, third building along, up two flights of stairs and to the third door from the stairwell. The door was wide open, half off of its hinges and marked with bloody handprints. Alex prepared herself and walked inside. Atticus lay unconscious in the centre of the room and no one else was anywhere to be found. Alex ran over to him and shook him.

"Atticus! Atticus wake up!" Alex yelled at him. Groggily, Atticus began to open his eyes.

"Alex?" He asked confused, then all of a sudden the memories of what happened before he was knocked out he pushed Alex back and jumped to his feet suddenly alert.

"Where's Callum and Alice?" He demanded.

"You were the only one here when I got here." Alex explained, getting to her feet. Atticus rushed her, grabbing hold of both her shoulders and slamming her against the wall.

"Why did you leave?! It was you they wanted and now they have my niece and my oldest friend! Four of us could have taken them but you were gone!" He screamed at her.

"They can't have gotten far, I'm sorry but-"

"Sorry!" He slammed her against the wall again. "I travelled with Callum for over 1900 years. 1900 years we kept each other safe and then you come along and-you were gone and now...now-" He bowed his head, almost sobbing, as if he was trying to choke back tears. He released Alex, who slumped against the wall as she watched him walk over to the door.

"I'm going to find them and you're going to stay the hell out of my way." He opened the door slightly and without turning his head he spoke to her again. "I get it now, why you wanted to be known as Pandora. The only thing you bring is hate and pain and destruction, but you know you got it wrong." Alex looked up at him hopefully, but when he looked back his hazel eyes, that were once so happy and contented, were empty and cold. "You don't bring any hope." Atticus slammed the door shut behind him as he left. Alex looked around her, the flat was in ruins- blood stained across the floor and walls, furniture broken and upturned. She slid down the wall slowly until she hit the floor with a thump. She drew her legs up to her chest and then she just sat there and distraught yet unable to cry. She spent the next few decades in a similar state.

* * *

Bright white lights formed in front of Alex's eyes. She started to blink and the white blobs of light merged together to form clouds. She tried to sit up slowly, her head aching. The sun was high in the sky, it must have been getting close to midday.  _How long have I been out?_  Alex questioned herself. She had no idea where she was and her comms device had broken on impact. She looked at her surroundings; she had landed on a beach. The rocks she had crashed onto were now dyed a deep crimson with small flecks of grey matter. Her hand went instinctively to the back of her head but of course, she found no wound. She poked the substance on the rock.

"Ew." She said out loud to herself. She looked to her left and just onto the rocks at the edge of the next bay she could make out the smashed remains of Loki's cell. Thor, however, was nowhere to be seen- which was good, Alex guessed, although she would have found the company comforting. She looked in land, where there appeared to be a few houses not too far away. Go to the houses. Find out where the hell she was. Acquire some mode of transportation. Get to the nearest city and try to contact SHIELD. It seemed like a good enough plan.


	14. A Good Name

Alex had been walking for 20, maybe 30 minutes before she came across a large farmhouse just outside of the town she'd seen from the beach. Well, Alex had assumed it was a farmhouse from its rustic architecture and from the large red-brown barn that stood next to it, but in truth all the surrounding fields were bare; no crops or livestock. The only thing that made Alex think that the place was not abandoned was the neatly mown lawn in front of the property. The gravel path crunched underneath even Alex's light-footed steps as she approached the small wooden porch and the large oak-brown front door. She found the door unlocked and knocked loudly as she pushed it open.

"Hello?" She shouted down the hall as she cautiously walked in. Suddenly, she felt the pressure of a cold metal shotgun on the small of her back.

"That's far enough, missy." The voice came from behind Alex's ear. It was a masculine voice, and a young one at that; the accent suggested north-east America.

"Come on now, I just came to talk. We don't want to get blood and organs all over your nice clean hallway. How old are you, kid?"

"As old as you, missy." he replied, attempting a mock defiance to cover how nervous he felt.

"I very much doubt that. I'm gonna guess 15, 16? Yeah, where did you learn to fire a shotgun, kid?"

"Stop callin' me 'Kid'!"

"Well, I don't know your name. Look, I'm called Alex, Alex Lazarus, I'm working on something big and important and I need some information." Alex waited for a reply but he was silent. "This information could save the world, kid. Imagine going into school and being able to tell that really pretty girl, y'know the one you've fancied for ages but haven't had the guts to ask out yet, how would she react when you told her that you helped Alex Lazarus save the world." He paused for a moment before replying.

"My Grandma taught me how to shoot, her uncle taught her... The name's Callum." The name stung Alex bringing up heart-breaking, long since forgotten memories.

"That's a good name." Alex managed to utter after a while, sadness evident in her voice. She could feel the pressure released from her back as she turned to look at Callum. Her guess was pretty close, he looked about 16 years old. He had a skinny frame and greasy dark hair that flopped over the left side of his acne-ridden face. He had the shotgun in his left hand, pointed down towards the floor.

"What did you wanna know about?" he asked, timidly looking towards the floor. Alex grinned and clapped her hands together.

"I'm going to need transport, all the guns and ammunition you possess, directions to the nearest city and a phone call." Callum pulled a mobile out of his pocket and handed it over to her.

"Make your phone call and follow me."

* * *

Steve walked into the room where Loki's cell used to be. A metal hatch closed in a spiral over the gap where Thor and Alex had fallen. Tony was stood on the edge of the platform staring at the wall opposite. Steve didn't have to ask to know what, or whom, he was thinking about. He ascended the steps to the platform adjacent to Tony's and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his body. After a moment he decided on something to say to him.

"Was he married?" Steve asked his voice monotone and grief-stricken.

"No. There was a, uh, cellist, I think." Tony replied, keeping his gaze fixed on one spot on the wall.

"I'm sorry." Steve said after awhile "He seemed like a good man." Tony smirked slightly as he thought this over and finally looked away from his spot on the wall and over at Steve.

"He was an idiot." Tony said raising his eyebrows and scoffing slightly.

"Why? For believing?" Steve defended.

"For taking on Loki alone." Stark said shrugging as he moved away from the edge and down the main walkway.

"He was doing his job." Steve said, still defensive in his tone of voice, and Tony groaned.

"He was out of his league, he should have waited, he should have..." Tony gave an exasperated sigh. "A few more minutes and Alex would have been there, she could have helped him take Loki down and now he's dead and she's... she's whatever happens to an immortal when you drop her from a jet plane."

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony," Steve began walking towards him. There was an air of sympathy and empathy to his advice, after all he'd experienced losing a soldier, a friend, many times before and knew a little something about loss.

"Right." Tony said sarcastically as he stormed past Steve towards the exit. "I've heard that before."

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?" Tony turned round to face him,

"we are  _not_  soldiers!" He exclaimed. The pair of them stood in awkward silence before an electronic buzzing sound came from Tony's pocket. Steve looked around confused; he wasn't used to technology. Tony on the other hand just rolled his eyes, pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the caller ID. The number was unknown however, JARVIS had managed to track it to the north-eastern seaboard. Tony decided to answer it anyway, placing it on speaker so that Steve could hear as well.

"Hello?" He asked.

"Tony?" The pair recognised the voice almost instantly by its generic, yet strong, English accent and a smile broke across their faces.

"Alex! You're alive-" he began.

"Of course I am! Takes more than a 28,000 foot drop to kill me," she exclaimed confidently. "Who knew?" she added, somewhat less confidently. "Did Loki get away? What about Coulson- did he make it?" The pair offered no answer and their silence confirmed Alex's fears.

"Shit." She said after a moment.

"But, that's not the only thing," Steve began. "Before Coulson, before he... he told Fury that he saw Loki take some of your blood-" Steve continued to explain but Alex had zoned out after the phrase 'took her blood' she knew what it meant- what her blood could do. She could tell a thousand stories on the problems her blood caused.  
 _"Son of a bitch."_  she whispered into the phone.

"What? Why is your blood so important?" Steve asked.

"68 years ago, my father created a serum. He injected me with it, it's what makes me immortal and with a sample of my blood-"

"You can recreate the original serum." Tony said blankly in shocked realisation.

"Loki's an Asgardian, I thought those guys were basically immortal anyway." Steve said.

"It might not be for himself," Tony began, "He could create an army of immortals. He'd be unstoppable."

"But, it's not just that," Alex continued, "Once you have the extracted serum you can use it to create a cure, too-"

"Make you mortal again."

"Yeah...that." Alex said starkly, "But he'd need a lab, a pretty high-tech one at that."

"What's his game? Loki needs a power source too. If we can put together a list-" Steve began.

"He made it personal." Alex's voice crackled over the phone.

"That's not the point, Alex."

"That  _is_  the point!" Tony said, "That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart." Steve and Alex answered in unison.

"Yeah divide conquers, great, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's why he took Alex's blood; only way to beat her and that's what he wants! He wants to beat us; he wants to be seen doing it." Tony paced to the opposite side of the room, pushing the phone into Steve's hands as he did.

"Like his act in Stuttgart." Alex offered.

"Yeah but that's just previews, this is opening night and Loki; he's a full tail diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered-" Tony stopped speaking and stared, gobsmacked, into space. "Son of a bitch." He ran back down to Steve and grabbed the phone, turning it off speaker and holding it to his ear.

"Alex, do you have any way of getting to New York?"

"Oh," Alex sighed happily. "I think my new friend Callum's got that covered for me."

* * *

Alex stared into the entrance of the large barn, hanging up the phone and handing it back to Callum without making eye-contact. She was far too preoccupied with staring at the large grey jet-plane parked inside the barn. It was beautiful; aerodynamically curved into a slick 'V' shape. The sun bounced off its nose and glistened- almost sparkling.

"Callum," Alex said, finally breaking eye contact with the jet. "Can you fly this thing to New York?"

"I reckon I can manage that." He replied, leading her round into the plane and to the cockpit. Alex sat down next to him and suddenly the jet was not the only thing grabbing her attention. She picked up a small, square sepia-tone polaroid from on top of the dashboard and examined the two young women in it, both with long brown hair tucked up into an old-fashioned leather flight cap, wearing bomber jackets and smiling happily.

"Callum, did your gran teach you to fly as well?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied, flicking switches and pressing buttons around himself, "She was quite a skilled woman back when she was young."

 _"I know she was."_  Alex thought, flipping the photo over to read the roughly pencilled-in caption on the back-

_'Alice and Alex~June 1948'_


	15. (Not so)Good Aim

The jet flew as gracefully as Alex had imagined. Air glided past the sides like twirling ribbons twisting into a bow behind the tail. Yet as infatuated with the sleek midnight black jet as she was, Alex couldn't take her mind off of the old Polaroid that she had held onto since lift-off. She vaguely remembered when it was taken, but that was mainly to do with the odd occurrence of a sunny English summer. The heat and clear skies allowed for Alice, Alex, Callum and Atticus to spend the long summer days that year learning how to fly a plane- a skill that turned out to be quite useful. A skill, it would seem, that she passed onto her grandson.

"Callum, it's an interesting name- a Scottish name, isn't it?" Alex inquired.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" he replied, briefly glancing over.

"I used to have a friend named Callum, a long time ago."

"So did my grandmother, also a long time ago, also the same Callum," he replied nonchalantly; he glanced over to see Alex staring at him in surprise. "What, you think I'm stupid? I've seen that photo you've been looking at before, y'know. My grandmother told me all 'bout her uncle Atticus and Callum- and  _Alexandria Lazarus_ , told me all the stories."

" _All_  the stories?" Alex asked.

"Yeah,  _all_  the stories, or what, did ya think I'd just assume you have a killer anti-wrinkle cream." Alexandria giggled at his remark, mainly in an attempt to cover her embarrassment. She looked back down at the photo in her hand.

"Where's your grandmother now?Is she-"

"Dead? No, but she's pretty sick, in hospital." They sat in silence until the scenery around them became more and more densely populated with tall skyscrapers jutting into the air. They were approaching the city.

"Where do you want me to land?" Callum looked over to see Alex standing up and sliding two handheld pistols into either side of her belt, and a short dagger that she strapped around the top of her thigh.

"Whoever said anything about landing?" she asked, smirking at him as she walked over to the back of the plane, "I need you to get me as close to Stark Tower as you can; once I'm gone, I want you to turn around and get as far away from here as you can."

"Yeah," he said as Alex opened the rear door, "and how are you gonna get to Stark Tower?" The jet slowed slightly as they approached the tower.

"Good aim." she shouted back to him as she jumped. Air hurtled past her as she fell. G _ood aim_  she thought as the platform grew increasingly larger  _good aim_. Her shoulder whacked against the side of the main platform with a loud and sickening crack, forcing her to roll to the right landing on the lower walkway with a thud.

"Agent Lazarus," she heard Stark's voice through the recently fixed comms system in her ear, "did that fall from heaven hurt just now?" Alex groaned as she rolled onto her side.

"Bite me," she mumbled as she slowly got to her feet, feeling the pain relief as the bruises and broken bones began to rectify themselves. "Where are the others?"

"On their way."

"Where's Loki?" She almost growled the question.

"Is that the best idea? If he has the cure already-" Stark began.

"Then I need to get it off of him before he can use it."

"He's inside, I blasted him - " Stark was interrupted by the noise of the Tesseract firing a stream of cerulean blue energy into the air, ripping apart the sky to reveal a deep dark black hole that hundreds of thousands of grey shield-skinned aliens poured out of.

"Right, army."

"You deal with them. I'll get the cure off of Loki." Alexandria said purposefully, marching swiftly inside the tower.

It took a second for Alex's eyes to adjust to the darker light of the room, but once they had she sure enough found Loki sat in the corner of the room. The wall behind him was cracked in ripples that echoed out from where he had collided with it. Loki looked up at Alex and smirked, getting to his feet and slowly walking towards her.

"The immortal woman, truly immortal, I was unsure as to whether that little fall you had would kill you." Alex walked forwards at the same pace until they were a few strides apart.

"If you really thought that fall would kill me, then why would you have taken my blood?" she asked, her voice level and unfaltering.

"Ah, so the agent managed to offer some information in his death, but as to your blood, call it a back-up plan," he said as he pulled a small vial of violet liquid from inside his heavy leather jacket, "insurance against your survival." As soon as Alex saw the vial she removed her guns from their holsters and shot at the glass,hoping it would shatter and be lost forever. Unfortunately, his reflexes were too fast and he was able to quickly snatch away the vial from the bullets' trajectory and placed it back in his jacket.

"Alexandria, are you really planning to shoot me?" He tutted, "And here I thought you had at least a small shred of intelligence." He slid his grip of the staff down in his hand, its increased length easily covering the small gap between the pair as swung it at Alex, the sharp tip colliding with her head and sending her flying across the centre of the room. She slammed against the hard wood flooring with such a force that she could taste her own blood in her mouth. She spat red onto the floor.

"Loki, are you really trying to kill me?" she chuckled, "And here I thought you had at least a small shred of intelligence." She tried to get up, but in a blink of an eye Loki had crossed the room and was pinning her down by her throat. She struggled uselessly underneath his grip but, his hold was unyielding. He removed the vial from his jacket again and flicked the top off.

"You think you can win, you and your little team. You. Are. Wrong." Alexandria tried to speak, but all that came out were choked splutters. "You wonder why I didn't just put you under my control when we first met in the forest? It's because I wanted to test you, see how near to death you can be and still come back, see how your past can trigger reactions in you. You intrigued me, Alexandria Lazarus. I wanted to push you, break you so that you beg for the cure and then," he chuckled to himself. "only then would I put you under my control. I have to say, I am disappointed that that will not be." He squeezed the sides of her jaw, forcing her mouth open. "Still, killing you with the knowledge that you will stay dead will be satisfying." Loki brought the vial over Alex's mouth and poured it in. Alex refused to swallow holding it from the back of her mouth, Loki brought his hand over her mouth trying to force her to drink it. _It's now or never_  Alex thought and she bit down on his hand. Loki yanked his hand back in a mixture of shock and pain. Seizing the moment, Alex turned to her side and spat the purple liquid out onto the floor making sure none was left in her mouth.

"Insolent midgardian," he said as he examined his hand. He went to stand but Alex swung her leg out, tripping him back onto the floor. As he fell, a second vial of the cure rolled out from his jacket and towards the large ceiling-to-floor windows that made up the outer wall. As it rolled across the floor, they shared a glance before both scrambling forward to grab it first. As soon as Alex snatched the vial in her hand, Loki grabbed her by the shoulder, flipping her over and pinning down the arm that held the cure. He grinned as he pushed his weight down onto the left side of her body reaching over her for the cure. He leaned down beside her ear and whispered,

"It's a shame that we have to meet as enemies; usually I would find the circumstances surrounding a position such as this one a lot more enjoyable." As he spoke, Alex reached down to the strap on her outer thigh, slowly removing the dagger she'd holstered in it earlier. Gripping it in her hand, she pushed with her right, flipping him onto his back and pressing the blade against his throat.

"Actually, I find this a lot more enjoyable than any activity you no doubt had in mind." She said with a smirk of her own, pushing the dagger ever so slightly deeper as she slid the vial into her belt. Without giving him chance to react, Alex rolled off of him and sprinted out to the edge of the walkway outside the tower. Replacing the the dagger in her hand with the gun in her holster, she turned around and fired several shots in Loki's general direction as she leapt off the edge of the building, plummeting to the road below.


	16. Falling From Fatal Heights

Alex's head was groggy from the fall, which was easily understandable given the dark red pool that spread out from underneath her. She squinted into the sky as she opened her eyes; memories from just before the fall came back to her and, panicking suddenly, she checked her belt for the vial. It was still there, attached to the front of her belt, perfectly intact as she had landed on her back. Alex stood up and raised her head up to the top of the tower.

"Okay, new resolution; no more falling from fatal heights." She said aloud to herself, rubbing the back of her neck. She glanced at the vial in her belt. Destroying it would be very simple. She could, for example, smash it into a thousand pieces on the pavement and wait for the rain to wash away all that was left of it, or pour it down the drain to her left, letting it mix with the sewage, run down to the Atlantic, and kiss goodbye to it forever. Even with the thousands of possibilities that came to mind, she couldn't bring herself to do it. When she tried to all she could do was think about was Alice. Old, dying Alice, spending her last days in a hospital bed, surrounded by loved ones, all reminiscing about the times they'd spent together, about the life Alice had had, because that's what it was- a life, a real life, with a family; children and grandchildren. Alice had many people who would miss her when she was gone. Alice would never have to watch another loved one die and throughout her life Alice had never had to look in the mirror everyday only to see the exact same, unchanging face staring back at her, year after year, decade after decade. Alice had always had the opportunity to make that one ultimate choice if things became to hard to cope. Alex could never bring her self to destroy her one chance at having all the things she can't have, the things she may never have. So, she just left the vial in her belt; a way out for when the world doesn't need saving anymore. _"Because,"_  she thought to herself  _"what's the point in never dying, if I never get to live either?"_

"What the hell, Claire Bennet" Tony's voice buzzed in her ear and brought her back to reality, "You got a thing for cracking your skull open? 'Cause there are easier ways of becoming a redhead." Alex glanced at the long ponytail that rested on her shoulder that now had a dark, albeit sticky and tangled, red mixed in with its usual chestnut brown.

"Gotta get my kicks somehow; besides, Ariel is my favourite Disney princess."

There was a loud crash above her and Alex looked up to see a S.H.I.E.L.D jet spiralling down to the ground.

"I'll join up with them, you keep up the fireworks." Alexandria said, pressing her hand to the comms system in her ear and breaking into a run in the direction of the crashing plane.

Alex had been running for what seemed like forever in her effort to bridge the small gap between herself and the others. The streets were a chaotic tempest of frightened civilians and Chitauri warriors and whilst she tried to reach Clint, Natasha, and Steve as quickly as possible, Alex couldn't just rush past and let these people get hurt. So after a short while, covered in blood (a mixture of her own and her enemies) and sweat, and with several rips in her suit that added to the large one she had sustained across her arm and lower torso when the grenade exploded on the helicarrier, she found herself caught up with the other three, surrounded by Chitauri corpses.

"Behind you." Clint shouted to her and Alex turned, drawing her gun, to find three Chitauri behind her. She was about to shoot when sudden strokes of lightning struck all three dead and Thor landed, on one knee, where they'd struck, slowly raising his gaze to meet them while his chin length, blood spattered, blond hair blew gently in the breeze.

"Well," Alex said dryly, "That makes my entrance look a bit shit, really." Clint smirked at her comment, however Natasha and Steve kept their 'war faces' on and Thor held the expression of confusion that seemed to be his trademark.

Steve walked over to Alex and Thor as they stood beside each other

"What's the story upstairs?" He asked.

"The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable." Thor answered him.

"Thor's right," Tony's voice rang out in their ears, "We gotta deal with these guys."

"How do we do this?" Natasha asked.

"As a team." Steve replied.

"I have unfinished business with Loki.". Thor announced; Alex and Clint shared a knowing look, a mixture of contempt and slight amusement.

"You'll have to get in line." Clint smiled at Alex as he said so,

"and I'm second in the queue," Alex jumped in. "Loki broke my neck, pushed me off the helicarrier and made me jump backwards off of a skyscraper. At the very least, he owes me a pint."

"Save it." Steve said curtly and with an air of authority to his voice that made the smirk drop from Alex's face almost instantly.

"Loki's gonna keep his fight focused on us," Steve said as he marched to the centre of the small group, "and that's what we need. Without him, these things could run wild." He turned and faced everyone beginning to point and fire orders at the group.

"We've got Stark up top: he's gonna need us to-" Steve stopped mid-sentence at the soft, low-pitched chugging of a motorbike engine. Everyone turned to see where the sound was coming from, to find Bruce coming to a slow stop and discarding a beat-up, rusted bike onto the road, walking over to meet them.

"So," he began awkwardly, "This all seems...horrible."

"I've seen worse." Natasha said, somewhat coldly, looking him up and down.

"Sorry." he said, smiling apologetically.

"No," she began in a warmer tone, "we could do with a little worse." Clint looked at Alex with his eyebrows raised and she noticed she'd been grinning like an idiot through that entire exchange. The smile dropped and was replaced with a tomato-red blush.

"Stark," Steve began, not noticing- to her delight- Alex's embarrassment, "We got him."

"Banner?" Tony said

"Just like you said."

"Then tell him to suit up, I'm bringing the party to you."

There was a sudden large crash and Alex looked up to see a huge cloud of dust and debris emerging from the side of the building- along with the creature that caused it. A huge, robotic, eel-like alien flew through the sky, plated in some sort of metal that allowed it to ride the wind with swift elegance and stacked on it's top and sides were massive sharp looking fins that fluctuated as it tried to gain balance after its collision with the tower block. Tony, all suited up in red and gold, sped past in front of it, leading it on. From the look on everyones faces, they shared the same shock as Alex. Steve stared at it wide-eyed and gobsmacked, Thor bared his teeth and growled slightly, readying Mjolnir in his hand. Natasha shook her head slightly in disbelief.

"I- I don't see how that's a party." she said.


	17. Taking the fight to them

"I- I don't see how that's a party." Natasha said staring in disbelief as the iron man lead the great metal creature down through the streets, smashing buildings, cars and trees, anything that got in its way. "Bruce," Alex shouted after him as he walked towards the alien. "If you could manage a little bit of a tantrum right now, get all angry, that'd be awesome." Bruce turned his head back and smiled at her, "That's my secret, Alex, I'm always angry."

In a matter of seconds Bruce had turned from Jekyll to Hyde, clothes ripping, muscles bulging, skin turning a pleasant light olive colour- the whole works. He approached the beast as it dove nearer to the ground and slammed a large green fist straight into its face; the force of the impact pushed him back along the road, tarmac being uprooted in waves behind his feet. The armoured creature flipped onto its back, its tail squirming in the air as it was inverted. It was at this point Alex realised that despite how incredibly awesome it looked, it was about to crush herself and everyone around her to (at the very least semi-permanent) death.

"Hold on." Stark said, hovering above them. He raise his arm and a small missile shot out from his suit, hitting the centre of the beast and pushing it back with explosive pressure. Flames burst from the impact, the Cap turned in front of Natasha placing his shield between the pair of them and the explosion, the flames pouring over it like an umbrella. Alex turned her back to the flame, shielding her face with her arm and any burns she received healed near instantaneously. The beast fell to the side crashing in a heap on the ground, the noise grabbed more Chitauris' attention, almost all of them now focused on the seven, now stood back to back in the centre. Their fear was short lived, however, as more and more Chitauri poured through the wormhole above Stark Tower.

"Guys." Natasha said, her eyes raised to the sky.

"Cap, your call." Tony said.

"All right, listen up," he began stepping forward. "Until we can close that portal our priority is containment." He turned to Clint. "Barton I want you on that roof, eyes on everything, call out patterns on everything," He turned again. "Stark, you've got the perimeter. Anything gets more than 3 blocks out you turn it back or you turn it to ash."

"Can you give me a lift?" Barton asked Tony.

"Right, better clench up, Legolas." he said grabbing him by the shoulder and jumping into the air.

"Thor," Steve continued. "You gotta try and bottleneck that portal, slow 'em down. You got the lightning; light the bastards up. Lazarus, Romanov, you stay on the ground with me, keep the fighting here and Hulk?" He turned to Banner with a smile. "Smash." And with that he was gone, jumping from building to building, _smashing_.

The sky turned grey and overcast above Alex and was suddenly shot with sheets of silvery electricity. Unfortunately for the trio on the ground, the Chitauri that didn't get smashed, electrocuted, blown up or shot were incredibly pissed off. Charging among the streets with force and rage. Alex wrestled with one on the ground, her gun arm trapped beneath her. She used her free hand to reach around it yanking it off her by the wires that ran through the back of its neck. Some sparks shot out from the Chitauri and it looked almost dazed as it fell to Alex's side. With her gun now free, she jumped to her feet and turned to shoot it before it could regain focus, however a sudden blue light hit it and she span around to see Natasha wielding one of the alien weapons. A sudden noise made the pair turn and almost shoot until they found that it was only Steve. Relieved, Alex, for the first time in what seemed like a long time, stopped to breathe for a moment.

"Captain," Natasha said panting, "None of this is going to mean a damn thing if we don't close that portal."

"Our biggest guns couldn't touch it." he replied solemnly.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Alex began rubbing her right temple. "But maybe, just this once, guns aren't the answer." Her voice seemed as though she was questioning her own idea. "Anyhow you're gonna need a ride if you wanna get up there." Natasha looked up at the Chitauri zooming above them in the small two man jet-things.

"I got a ride," she said, dropping the weapon and backing away. "I could use a boost though." she told the Cap. Steve backed up as far as he could and placed his shield in front of him.

"You sure about this?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's gonna be fun." she said before running forward, jumping off of a car, being boosted off a shield and grabbing onto the back of a passing Chitauri plane. Steve and Alex stared up in disbelief, Alex turned to him;

"Youngsters these days." she said, readying her guns as another Chitauri horde charged towards them.

 

* * *

 

As Alex shot the last of the Chitauri group that had just attacked them, a call came through her and Steve's comms;

"Captain, Agent, there's a bank on 42nd past Madison; they've cornered a lot of civilians there."

"We're on it," he answered. Alex and the Cap weren't far away and it didn't take long until they were standing outside the bank. At the door stood a small group of armed Chitauri, Steve was ready to go attack them head on but Alex put out a hand to stop him.

"No point in alerting them that we're here, Cap." she said, pointing up at an open window on the second floor.

"Should I be worried by your ease at breaking in to high security buildings?"

"Old habits die hard." Alex called over her shoulder as she quickly scaled the small height up to the window, swinging into the bank by the ledge above. She rolled as she landed and drew one of her hand guns, firing a bullet into the face of an unsuspecting alien as Steve leapt in beside her, throwing his shield at a second Chitauri behind the first. However, the noise was enough to attract the attention of a further two Chitauri, and these two were armed. Steve leapt for cover behind a upturned desk but, Alex was not fast enough and a sudden shot to the shoulder sent her flying back; collapsing to a heap on the floor. Steve kicked out the desk he had hidden behind, knocking the armed Chitauri over the gallery bannister and down into the foyer; where a massive group of civilians were crowded below. Alex pushed her self back upright against the wall as Steve threw a third enemy over the wooden railing; it landed in a quickly created space where two or three people were just standing. Another Chitauri ran to grab him from behind but Alex fired three shots into its side- shoulder, thigh and head- stopping it in its course. This was the point at which they noticed the fifth Chitauri, who was in fact (albeit somewhat inconveniently for the two heroes) throwing a near to detention bomb at the pair. Turning on her heels, Alex ran for the window they'd entered from, the Cap was just behind her, holding out his shield to protect him from the blast. Alex landed, somewhat gracefully, almost directly under the window however the blast threw Steve back and he landed in a crumpled heap on top of what used to be an attractive silver sedan. He slowly raised himself off of the car roof, glass singing as it hit the floor. Behind the pair people began to pile out of the building and down into the subways to safety. Steve looked at Alex with a pained expression.

"I know," she said with a knowing grin, "It sucks, doesn't it." Steve feigned a smile, that turned out as more of a grimace, in Alex's direction. A trio of Chitauri warriors flew in a line round the corner at the end of the avenue.

"The party isn't over yet, Cap." She said as she fired a shot at each in turn as the one before it fell, "I don't know why they were heading that way but we've gotta take the fight to them."


	18. A Day When The World Doesn't Need Saving

A shot fired and Steve groaned as he fell, clutching his stomach. Alex turned to her left, 4 Chitauri were heading towards them, firing as they scrambled among the debris of broken cars and fallen sections of dilapidated skyscrapers. There was a high-pitched ring as the shots bounced of Thor's hammer, jumping off in all directions. Alex shot at them, repeatedly and to no success, right up to the point that Thor stepped forward and threw a car at them. Somewhat embarrassed, she holstered her guns and walked to help Steve up. She offered him a hand and, clutching his stomach, he got to his feet.

"You ready for another bout?" Thor asked walking towards the pair.

"What? You getting sleepy?" Steve asked panting. Alex smiled as Thor picked his hammer back up. A voice came crackling through the comms.

"I can close it." Natasha said, "Can anybody copy? I can shut the portal down."

"Do it." Steve shouted, raising his hand to his ear.

"No wait." Tony's voice came through

"Stark, these things are still coming."

"I've got a nuke coming it's gonna blow in less than a minute, and I know just where to put it."

Alex looked to the sky, and sure enough there was Tony, all in red and gold and carrying a missile almost twice his size. He was moving fast and in a few seconds he vertical, flying up alongside the stream of Tesseract energy that was keeping the portal open. Then, in another few, he was gone, and so was the nuke.

Around them Chitauri began to drop, one after another, great big beasts falling from the sky and collapsing on top of buildings. They looked at the portal expectantly. Nothing came through it.

"Close it." the Cap said after a deafening silence and the stream of energy faltered before cutting out completely. Alex let out a sigh and Steve looked down and closed his eyes. Just as the portal snapped shut, Alex could just make out a figure falling from the sky.

"Look!" she shouted and Steve's head snapped up. A grin spread across his face

"Son of a gun." he muttered. Tony kept falling, and falling and picking up speed as he got closer to the ground.

"He's not slowing down," Thor said, getting ready to fly, but before he could manage, Banner jumped in, grabbing Tony as he scaled down the side of a building. He clutched Tony close to his body as he slammed on to his back in the middle of the road. The three of them rushed forward and knelt down next to him. Thor rolled him over and pulled the front of his mask off. He didn't move. Alex bowed her head looking down at her lap when the sun glinted against something in her belt. Alex took it out and held it in her hand; a small vial of purple liquid. Looking down at it, her mind began to race, considering so many things in so little time. She thought about a day when the world didn't need saving, and about a little life, with a little family. She thought about Alice and Callum. She thought about Callum and Atticus. She also, in that short time, thought about Tony, about his life , about Pepper; and it all became so startlingly obvious. She came to a final conclusion. She opened the vial and poured it into Tony's mouth.

"What was that." Steve asked her, grabbing the empty vial out of her hand.

"For me- a cure, but for anyone else-" Tony's eyes opened suddenly as he coughed and spluttered on the cure, sucking in air.

"It's got just enough immortality for a quick fix."

"What the hell," Tony exclaimed panting. "What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me."

"No one kissed you. I mean I did drug you with a special chemical compound manufactured by mind-controlled henchmen from a sample of an over 80-year-old formula in my blood." Alex said with her sarcastic smile.

"Wait, what?"

"We won." Steve said, in simple terms. Tony let out a sigh of relief.

"All right, hey! Hooray, good job guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow, let's just take a day. You ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is but, I want to try it."

"We're not finished yet." Thor said looking up at Stark tower.

"Okay, but then shawarma after."

Loki pulled himself up the glass covered steps slowly. With every small movement, he let out long, laboured and panting breath. As he inched himself forward bits of glass fell to the ground with a high-pitched 'ting'. He turned to face them, all seven of them, towering over and glaring down at him. Barton was drawn and ready to fire. His eyes darted across the faces of the group as he sat forward.

"If it's all the same to you," he said pushing himself upright and smiling slightly "I'll have that drink now."

Alex leant against the short stone wall. The tall oak trees before her only partially blocked the sun, light escaping through gaps in between the large leaves that caused her to squint slightly as she looked on at the pair stood in the middle of the street. Thor and Loki each held on to an end of the glass container, that glowed a bright blue from the Tesseract inside it, and as they turned the handle, Alex sat and watched the light grow and consume them, and she sat and watched as they disappeared. She remained sat and watched as the others said goodbye, Natasha and Clint drove of together, Steve got on to his motorbike- go figure- and went his own separate way. She sat and watched Bruce jump shotgun into Tony's ridiculously over the top red sports car, and she watch Tony walk over and lean against the wall next to her.

"So, I get that Loki made a 'cure for immortality'," He said making inverted commas in the air, "and I assume he tried to give it to you when you were in the tower, and he- obviously- failed and you got away with the vial, but, uh, here's what I don't get-"

"Why didn't I destroy it?"

"Exactly, the stuff's your kryptonite."

"I'm going to brush right over the irony of a superhero analogy at this point, and let's get it straight that I'm not about to pour my heart out right now, but, in all honesty- I'm tired. I'm 85 years old for Christ's sake and I still get ID'd and I guess part of me wants to just live a normal life and grow old and all that crap." Alex chuckled lightly, "Well, that's the story- Immortality ain't all it's cracked up to be. I wanted an escape plan- a way out when the world didn't need saving any more." She glanced up at him and he was smirking, the face someone makes when they're about to spit a mouthful of water from laughing.

"Okay, I get it, it's a stupid plan." He laughed at her.

"Yeah, I would say that, for starters, Al Ghul, the world always needs saving. I mean you seriously wanted to give up your highlander life-style, what the hell made you think that would be a good idea?"

"An old friend." Alex said as a wide smile came to her face, "which reminds me, I've got to get to the hospital." Tony motioned to the convertible in the street,

"need a ride?"

"Thanks but, I think I can get there on my own."

"Okay," he said standing up "but don't forget Shawarma after."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," She said smirking as she walked down the street. After a while she broke into a run, after all it was a meeting she was already 51 years late for.


	19. Epilogue

Hospitals always made Alex feel out of place. With good reason of course, it's not a place that she would ever be admitted to, she has no sick relatives to visit- no relatives full stop- and whilst she knew her new colleagues at S.H.I.E.L.D were capable of getting sick, she couldn't quite believe it. They were, and are, indestructible. Yet nevertheless here she found herself, her feet falling in front of one another almost subconsciously as her mind wandered and she made her way to the last room on the right. She walked with a purpose and the patients and doctors were to involved with there own lives and work to question what she was doing there. It seemed like hours had passed by the time she found herself hovering in front of the large wooden door. A clipboard hung by the side of it that read  _'_ _Alice Attkins'_ and Alex's heart caught in her throat when she read down and it said  _'terminal'_. Alex grabbed the door handle and stepped through the door as it opened with a loud creek. The door shut behind her equally loudly- enough to raise Alice from her sleep.

"What? Whose there?" Alice said, her voice croaky. She had changed a lot since Alex had last seen her. Her wide-set brown eyes were now surrounded in a halo of fine wrinkles and her once brunette bob was now a deep silver-toned grey that cascaded down her shoulders. Her lips, that Alex had never seen without a streak of red lipstick, looked pale and dry. Alice blinked a few times as her vision sharpened, and she was sure her eyes were playing tricks on her.

"Hello, Alice." She said softly

"51 years and all you've got to say is 'Hello, Alice'?" Alex smiled at her response "I've been looking for you ever since we last saw each other and you show up in my hospital room and you say 'Hello, Alice'"

"I met your grandson."

"Callum's a sweet boy, has about as much sense as his namesake, but sweet." Alex shuddered to think of Callum, her Callum, again.

"Alice what happened that day I'm sorry, I-"

"Don't get all weepy on me now." The old woman croaked

"But, what happened to you- to Callum and Atticus? Where are they?"

"It's a long story, and not one I'd care to relive, so I'll cut to the main points; Atticus came after us and he got caught, shortly after Aeternum released me- they aren't interested in humans. I wanted them back but, I knew taking them on my own was suicide- so I looked for you. About 5 years later I found myself in New York following a lead on your whereabouts, I also found Tom. Oh Alex I wished you could of met him- I never thought I find you, and even if i did- I was getting old. It was time to stop pretending I was like you; time to settle, have a family."

"So, our boys are still in trouble?" Alex said with the ghost of a smile.

"When are they not." Alice joked. "I always kept an ear out you know, even after I settled down, everything I know, all that I found, I kept it in a lock-box and gave it to my grandson to keep safe." Alex's ears pricked up at this news and she let relief flood her expression. "You promise me, Alex, you-" she made a loud hacking cough "promise me," she repeated with another cough, "promise...me-"

A nurse with close cropped curls entered the room suddenly.

"Mrs. Attkins-" She turned and shouted through the door "can I get some help in here?" She ran over to Alice's side and turned her head to Alex "Ma'am I have to ask you to wait downstairs."

Alex wanted to stay, but causing a scene wouldn't help right now. As she turned and walked out the door she could hear Alice croak after her;

"Search for them...search for them...search for-" Alex wasn't sure if Alice had stopped croaking or if she'd just walked out of earshot. She hoped for the later as she made her way to the relatives room.

* * *

It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes later when the same curly haired nurse came down and broke the news to her. Alex had nodded to her as she spoke, as she told her there was nothing they could do, as she told her she would contact the next of kin, she rambled on and Alex's brain just turned off- just nodding. When the conversation reached it's end, Alex went out on to the New York street and wandered up and down them as the sun was replaced with the moon and dim stars scattered the city sky and eventually she found herself in her apartment and in her bed and heavy eyelids closed to sleep.

Alex dreamed wild dreams that night. she dreamt of the chaos of past few days, of Atticus and Callum, and she dreamt of Alice. She woke to a text from Tony, asking why she'd forgotten  _Shawarma,_ and she didn't have the energy to answer. Instead she grabbed the nearest phone book and looked up Callum Attkins.

After all, he had a lock-box that she needed to get into


End file.
